Blood Poppy

"How do you think your dad’s going to react when he finds out the heroin in the shot that nearly killed you came from the same place your brother was killed?"
Vancouver, 2008. Retired police detective Thomas "Poppy" Popoff has been struck by personal tragedy, his son David killed while fighting with the Canadian military in Afghanistan. At the same time, his other son, Danny, a lifelong heroin addict, nearly dies from a lethal dose of heroin, with a Honduran drug dealer and illegal immigrant the primary suspect. Drawn into the police investigation into Danny's near-murder, Poppy is pulled into a web of intrigue and corruption reaching up to the highest echelons of Canadian society.
Blood Poppy is a thrilling and poignant look at drug addiction, gang crime, and social dissolution in Canada and North America. Jay Black's sophomore novel takes aim at the role of the Afghan War in perpetuating heroin trafficking, examining timeless themes such as fatherhood and duty while offering a critical commentary on one of the key problems of modern society.
"Jay Black's ultra gritty Blood Poppy is a raw and real look at urban decay and the corruption that fuels it. Set in the heroin-suffused streets of Vancouver, Blood Poppy begins like a traditional thriller featuring tough-as-nails cops and idealists. However, this is no mere genre fiction; Blood Poppy is the zeitgeist made manifest, and Black chronicles the miasmic legacies of the War in Afghanistan, the War on Drugs, and globalism like a concrete-walking Chaucer. A must read, especially for all fellow Canucks." — Justin Geoffrey, author of Full Moon Reaction