  We present the details of a method for conducting a targeted, coherent search
for compact binary coalescences. The search is tailored to be used as a
followup to electromagnetic transients such as Gamma Ray Bursts. We derive the
coherent search statistic for Gaussian detector noise and discuss the benefits
of a coherent, multi-detector search over coincidence methods. To mitigate the
effects of non-stationary data, we introduce a number of signal consistency
tests, including the null SNR, amplitude consistency and several $\chi^{2}$
tests. We demonstrate the search performance on Gaussian noise and on data from
LIGO's fourth science run and verify that the signal consistency tests are
capable of removing the majority of noise transients and the search gives an
efficiency comparable to that achieved in Gaussian noise.
