Every Last Drop

It's rare that you see an author "end" a successful series, but leave it to Charlie Huston to stand out from the crowd. The characters are extremely well drawn and compelling, the story line surprising and thought provoking and the writing sublime. I just hope Mr. Huston will come back with another fantastic series and that he doesn't abandon the urban fantasy genre entirely.

The vampire element is brilliantly handled in Huston's different way, as usual, but what makes the series for me is Huston's mastery of classic hardboiled detective writing. He just gets that style so perfectly, which makes the books a blast to read. Definitely read them in order but keep in mind that the first and now fourth are the best in the series so far - i.e., this Joe Pitt book is a step up from the previous two, which were a minor step down from the first. The action in Every Last Drop makes more sense, Joe is a little less of a ping-pong ball getting knocked around without any agency of his own, and the core relationships develop in more satisfying ways than in the last couple of books. I'll defer to Colin Lindsey's nice review for the rest, although I'm not as annoyed as he is at the way the book ended - the final developments with Terry and the Enclave were more than satisfaction enough, and set up the next book in an exciting way I don't mind waiting for.

I thought I was back in the land of Mickey Spillane. Outspoken, hard riding, bullet proof and with 3 days worth of whiskers. Oh yea, its Joe Pitt. Today's answer to Mickey Spillane. This is my second favorite tough guy with a very well hidden heart of gold. I just can't get enough of Joe Pitt. And did I mention he is also vampyre? Just to add a little more flavor to the story. This guy is rough, tough, and keeps on pounding to the end of the story. Give him 5 stars for a excellent mystery.

Just a warning, this will not be a spoiler-free review. In Charlie Huston's fourth Joe Pitt novel, the tension rises as protagonist Joe Pitt returns from exile to exact revenge and, once again, play all sides against one another to get what he wants. From dealing with savage, african inspired savages, digging up old skeletons from his past across the river, to uncovering a secret so large, it could potentially destroy life altogether for those that carry the vyrus. Not to mention the long awaited rendezvous... Being a reader since the first title (Already Dead) I couldn't wait for this book to drop, but was also slightly worried. After all, Huston's last three had been knock outs, could he capitalize on the universe he had built?? The answer, which comes as no surprise, is yes. Every Last Drop is just as gory, engrossing, and fast paced as the rest of the series has been. I literally couldn't put this book down until the very end. I anxiously wait the conclusion to this five-part masterpiece.

Take the unlikely combination of Elmore Leonard and Bram Stoker and you get Charlie Huston and Joe Pitt, Huston's vampire-heavy who prowls the streets of New York City's boroughs in "Every Last Drop", the fourth installment of the most hip, irreverent, and darkly innovative crime fiction to hit the shelves since Raymond Chandler. In this go around, after burning bridges with all the undead folks who matter in the various tribes of Manhattan, Pitt is exiled to the wild and unaffiliated wastelands of the Bronx and Queens, where untamed vampire gangs stalk home-bound Yankees fans, their blatant feedings threatening to expose the undead's existence to the world at large. Pitt's misfortune puts him in the hands of the abominable "Lament", an ancient and nefarious villain who corrupts and runs bands of vampire youth in the Bronx, to be rescued - in a fashion - by his old nemesis, Dexter Predo of the upscale "Coalition" clan. Predo tasks Pitt with penetrating the upstart "Cure", headed by the brilliant and uninfected Amanda Horde, the young debutante rescued by Pitt in the first installment of this off-the-wall series. But Pitt has his own agenda - getting back to his familiar streets of Manhattan, and finding the fate of girlfriend Evie left in the "care" of the frighteningly surreal "Enclave" at the conclusion of "Half the Blood in Brooklyn." Before this one wraps up, Pitt has discovered a horror unspeakable evil, evil even as defined within the context of this Tolkien-like nightmare world of vampire clans co-existing peacefully - well, mostly peacefully - with New York's straight citizens. Pitt's discovery leaves the clans are on the verge of war, and Pitt with a few less pieces than when he started all the fun. OK, so in reading this review, if you're not familiar with Huston's Joe Pitt, you are probably thinking "what the Hell is this idiot talking about?" And indeed, "Every Last Drop" is definitely NOT the place to start this provocative and insightful series that parodies not only the obvious horror fare, but also a wide diversity of topics from social progressiveness to Wall Street greed. The transformation of the series is fascinating - from the blood-heavy "Already Dead", entrenched in vampire lore, to this one, in which the whole vampire-shtick is almost incidental to a story that is far, far more pulp crime fiction than it is horror. As always, Huston's distain for convention in both theme and structure results in a style as distinctive as Cormac McCarthy - trademark prose that Huston can claim indisputably as his own. This is pop fiction at its creative peak - fresh and satirical and stuffed full of allegory and nuance - an in-your-face slap at convention and protocol that will most certainly launch a pack of new stylists in its wake. While Huston's blunt violence and his sparse, unapologetic passages are not for anyone, the iconoclastic Huston will continue to hold down my number one spot of contemporary crime writers.