Mike Tucker is a professional art dealer who moonlights as a professional thief. Through Clitus Felton, an ex-thief who runs a book store, Tucker receives offers to ply his second trade, but he picks and chooses which capers he becomes involved in. In "Blood Risk", Felton puts him in contact with Jimmy Shirillo. Shirillo's father died young, in part because he had to overwork himself to pay protection money to mob boss Rossario Baglio for the "privelege" of keeping his shoe repair business open. Shirillo wants to exact revenge on Baglio in the only way a mob boss would understand: by hitting him in the wallet.
With fellow outlaws Merle Bachman and Pete Harris, they attempt to steal the proceeds from the gambling operations Baglio oversees in suburban Pittsburgh. When the plan goes awry, Tucker must turn a blown heist into a rescue mission.

My Rating = C +

A quick and enjoyable read, but somewhat formulaic.

Book Information

"Blood Risk" was the first of five novels that Dean Koontz published under the pseudonym "Brian Coffey". It is one of the harder titles to locate and tends to be very expensive. Unfortunately, most of the copies I see listed for sale are ex-library editions. "Blood Risk" was the first of three novels to feature Mike Tucker as the protagonist, followed by "Surrounded" in 1974 and concluding with "The Wall of Masks" in 1975. It was never published in paperback in the United States, although Futura published a paperback edition in England.

American First Edition Information

You have the American first edition if there is a $5.95 price on the inside front of the dustjacket. The copyright page shows no number sequence.