Caught Stealing

The premise of the book is the wrong place / wrong guy scenario's where the lead character is going to be on the run a lot. It takes place in and around New York and paints a complete suburban nightmarescape of bad neighborhoods surrounded by not so bad neighborhoods. The story is told from a narrative point of view which really servers to draw the reader into the frantic world of the protaganist. I've got to say that I really enjoyed living through the eyes of someone who is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's a fun fast read.

Hank Thompson, a once California high school baseball star destined for the "bigs", is permanently sidelined in a stolen base gone bad, and now, some ten years later, is tending bar in New York City. Part time alcoholic and full time slacker - albeit a lovable slacker - Hank does a neighbor a small favor and as a result finds his previously ordinary life spinning wildly out of control through a .44 Magnum-sized case of mistaken identity. Hank, whose biggest previous concern was a remedy for sore feet and the fate of his San Francisco Giants, is now the target of a motley crew of Russian gangsters, assorted New York freaks, and dirty cops. Give first-time author Charlie Huston lots of credit: his irreverent, hip, and uncensored delivery assaults the reader relentlessly and without apology. A poor man's Cormac McCarthy, Huston dispatches the goods with none of the poetry but all of the impact; a visceral personal tour of one man's worst nightmare. Huston's gradual transformation of Hank from the basically docile ordinary guy to a stone cold killer is jolting, and guaranteed to trash any plans for the weekend you may have had. And despite his found talent for violence, you'll find yourself still rooting for Hank who, as the mayhem surrounding him mounts, his most pressing issue remains the outcome of baseball's regular season. Brutal, blunt, and gritty, Huston's "Caught Stealing" satisfies the deepest addictions of the pop thriller junkie. The first in a trilogy, "Stealing" was followed by the equally outrageous "Six Bad Things", and is scheduled to conclude with "A Dangerous Man" next year. If you're anything like me, you'll be anxiously waiting for Huston to wrap up Hank's crazed odyssey of blood lust and baseball.

In a past life Hank Thompson was on his way to the Big Leagues, but a broken leg kept him from the Show, ruining his Major League career. So now Hank tends bar on the Lower East Side of Manhatten, dreaming about what could have been, then one day his neighbor asks Hank to watch his cat while he leaves town to visit his sick old dad. Later that night a couple thugs come into the bar and beat Hank so badly that he loses a kidney. They give no reason for this and Hank hasn't a clue. Then his friends start to die and Hank decides that he has to get to the bottom of what's going on before something really bad and really permanent happens to him. Mr. Huston painted Hank's portrait on his pages so well, that I felt like I was him. I hurt when he hurt, got mad when he did. That is truly a mark of a remarkable writer and this is a remarkable book, just remarkable.

Some of my favorite flicks involved extraordinary ordeals encountered by ordinary people: wrong place wrong person scenarios. "Caught Stealing" was just that sort of novel. Henry Thompson was introduced as an alcoholic bartender anguishing through his adult years after two wretched life-changing events. First, a younger Henry (Hank) had seen his dreams of baseball stardom smashed by a career ending accident to his leg (clue: the title of the novel has something to do with baseball). Second, Hank accidentally killed his best friend when he swerved his car to avoid a baby calf and catapulted his childhood buddy through the windshield into a tree. Eventually, Hank escaped his hometown in California and picked New York to live out the rest of his pitiful existence. One day a neighbor (and an acquaintance) asked Hank to take care of his cat so he could visit his ailing father. From one seemingly meaningless/innocent favor all hell broke loose and Hank's nightmarish existence dropped a few more levels deeper into the abyss. Hank found himself the target of various bad guys, each with their own unique personality traits (I'd love to pick all the actors to play these guys in any potential movie) and each with their own lethal techniques of assault and torture. The action packed thriller was so much fun to read that I completed it in two days. Hank's heart-pounding adventure was pure pulp fiction bliss, and I could only picture Quentin Tarantino making a movie adaptation worthy of the super prose provided by Charlie Huston's pure-adrenaline-laced story unburdened by needless evocative details. Fancier authors sometimes get caught up in writing hundreds of descriptive sentences on unnecessary particulars in order to show off their command of the English language via the utilization of wacky adjectives, tacky adverbs and esoteric verbs. Trust me; this would be a fantastic beach book. I loved it and I can't wait until it is transformed into an action-packed movie extravaganza. Jay's Grade: A May 21, 2004

A very powerful narrative voice is what drives this debut novel which just so happens to be one of the best of the year so far. The author, Charlie Huston, is also a screenwriter and as expected the dialogue is dead on. Hank Thompson is a bartender on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. His life has been a bit of a disappointment in that he was slated to become a major league baseball player until he broke his leg. His humdrum existence comes to an abrupt end when Russ, a neighbor, leaves his cat with him while he visits his sick father for a few days or a few weeks. That night Hank gets so severely beaten up in a bar by two thugs that he requires surgery to remove a damaged kidney. This is just the beginning as Hank is chased, beaten, tortured for an unknown reason. As friends start to die, Hank realizes he must get to the bottom of the problem as his life depends on it. Hank is a complex character. He is tormented by an accident in the past and, in a sense, continues to punish himself with guilt. He is a sympathetic figure to the reader in that it seems everybody else in the book is evil. Rooting for this underdog drives the rapid pacing as the thrills continue one after the other. It is difficult to put the book down until the highly satisfying conclusion. With the superb characterizations, realistic dialogue and riveting story line, CAUGHT STEALING is one of the most memorable debuts this year.