Charlie Huston

I'm re-reading this book, and have decided this series--and particularly this book--has a carol-metaphor-story.

Once, in the early witching hours of the morning when absolutely nothing good happens, I got called out of bed to respond to a roll-over car accident out by Highway N. My partner and I jumped in the ambulance and raced to the scene, still half-asleep, ambulance lights and siren flaring in the darkness. The car had rolled off the road, but the scene was obvious from a mile away, lit show more up by white-hot spotlights and the strobes of police cars. Officers doing a search had found a teen thrown from the car, sprawled in the matted corn, limbs askew, barely conscious. He was in a halo of light, rimmed with an expanse of corn, enough to get lost in. As I knelt, crushing stalks under my knees, I took his head in my hands to hold his spine straight until my partner could apply a collar. He might have moaned as we worked. For his mother, for a cigarette, for a drink--who could tell? I could smell the sweetness of alcohol on his breath as I watched his breathing. When we shifted and wrapped his body, buckling him to the hard plastic longboard, I heard the deep thuk thuck of the helicopter blades as they slowed.

The Charlie Pitt series is a lot like that scene. Violence, stupidity and noble intentions; life and struggle; purpose and accidents; tension and inevitablity; darkness lit by flashes of white and red lights; poetry and philosophy in short choppy bites. Impressive and uncomfortable. The high of adrenalin coupled with tragedy.

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The finale in the Joe Pitt series satisfactorily brings it all together and leaves a warm afterglow. Truly, I wasn't sure it would. The beginning was rocky; Joe is apparently taping a chronicle of events, and of all things, laughing as he narrates. What?! Joe doesn't laugh. Maybe, at most, a dry chuckle or a bitter half-curve applied to the lip. It felt awkward. However, I stayed with it and it took off like one of Joe's matches flaring in the dark. Chubby comes to call and request a favor, dangling the chance for Joe to break even, and setting it with a sharp hook. Joe is dragged in despite himself, and soon finds himself traversing Manhattan looking for Chubby's missing daughter and her Vampyre lover.

Once again, the underbelly of New York comes alive, particularly the beginning when we follow Joe through his new turf, and the following subway sequences. I can just about feel the grime and hear the rumble of the train from Joe's shack. Every time Joe meets that pasty white Enclave skittering through the shadows, I shiver.

The overall action sequence felt a little re-hashed, but it worked well. It's the finale, and appropriate both in term of the plot and the arc of Joe's life, and frankly, it's satisfying to revisit the gang. Digga, Percy, Amanda, Sela, Phil, Lydia, Terry and Hurley, Predo, the Count. They all get a chance to wax philosophical, and what do you know--they all have some surprising insights that are true to character. Digga is my clear favorite, but Hurley's period accent and mindset runs a close second. The relationships have developed enough over the course of the series that it's not a replay--more of a jazz riff, escalating to a dramatic conclusion. Huston is not afraid to play hardball with his characters; like Hamlet, the stage is littered with bodies by the end.

And damn if the writing doesn't keep grabbing me:

"I'd say I was thinking about Evie, but that would be redundant. She's my white noise. Always there, crackling static in my brain. Inescapable. Mostly you tune it out. The second you focus on it, it drowns out everything else."

"Not that she's done me wrong. Just that she radiates danger with a half-life of forever."

"If it go that far. Which I ain't sure about as yet. Possibility people could all have a sudden attack of gettin' they's shit together. Never know."


Cross posted at: http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2013/07/02/my-dead-body-by-charlie-huston-vampyre... show less

None of his LAPD colleagues will partner up with Parker Haas and with the city being in the state it currently finds itself then he can't go out alone. His boss offers him a choice of assignments, admin duty or to go undercover looking for any signs of a black market for the only drug that offers any relief to the disease that's decimated the world. SLP, nicknamed sleepless, renders its victims unable to sleep until after months go by in this state kills them in a painful way. It would've show more been a boring book if he chose the former so we join up with Park's tale having established his cover as a drug dealer and infiltrating the high-end market where he's most likely to encounter Dreamer, the aforementioned drug. It's highly regulated with very limited supply so the value of any illegal trade would be quite significant. When Park recovers a hard drive from a murder scene of some of his new associates it could contain more information than he'd bargained for. He's also not the only one that wants what's on the drive. Jasper is what's known in the trade as a fixer. He's very good at what he does, otherwise he wouldn't have lived so long. He's been hired by a client he doesn't want to disappoint to retrieve the drive regardless of the cost. Can Park survive the inevitable encounter with Jasper while still looking after his infected wife and possibly infected infant daughter and still manage to do the right thing?

Combining elements of noir and police procedural in a post-apocalyptic setting of near modern day Los Angeles where the rich have retreated to their private residences or gated communities and the poor left to fend for themselves. It's a tautly written, often quite violent, thriller with some wonderful characters that are very well brought to life. The book uses the alternating voices of Park and Jasper as their respective stories begin to entwine until they finally come together using the styles of first and third person to readily distinguish between the two. The world-building is excellent and all too plausible. Touches of humour, mostly of the black variety, and moments of real tenderness provide relief from the rest of the bleakness. I've liked everything I've read from this author so far and this one proves no exception. show less

I’ve always liked Moon Knight. He’s a lesser character in the Marvel Universe, but his story has always interested me. Marc Spector, mercenary-cum-Avatar, the minion of Khonshu, a mysterious Egyptian diety brought back to life to wreak vengeance on evil-doers. No special powers, just some fancy equipment and determination. Not unlike DC’s Batman.
This collection of the first six issues of a revamped series finds Marc Spector in a wheelchair, injured, depressed, addicted to drugs and show more alcohol, raging at a statue of Khonshu. The art is sharp and dark, lots of black ink. He is visited in turn by people from his past—his lover, his best friend and sidekick, his most bitter enemy (The Bushman)—and is also stalked by a mysterious boardroom committee and an assassin called the Profiler. Some raw visuals of bloody fists and a meaty vision of The Bushman. But in the end Marc digs deep to become again the hero he truly is.
Great art, heroic striving from the darkness, and a touch of the mystical and mysterious. What’s not to like? show less

Don't read Huston's stuff if you have an objection to gritty and violent thrillers. This particular one has it in spades—from the moment bartender Hank Thompson gets dragged across his bar and beaten for no apparent reason, until the final pages which aren't cliché happily-ever-after, the story is a fast and raw encounter between a relatively average fellow and a world he's unequipped to handle. That's what makes Huston's stuff interesting: it feels more real than those stories where the show more ordinary protagonist suddenly discovers he's incredibly adept at outwitting criminals who have spent their lives moving in that world. show less