Ed's Mini Book Review - A Dangerous Man

Cover of A Dangerous Man: A NovelA Dangerous Man is the third and final book of Charlie Huston's Henry Thompson trilogy. To make a short story long, Henry Thompson starts out the trilogy as a former baseball prospect who doesn't make it to the bigs because of a broken leg. He then finds himself involved with Russian mobsters, crooked cops and notorious bank robbers who all claim he is in possession of something he has no clue about. The first book resolves those issues while the second book has him on the run and brings up new issues which all come to a head here, in the final installment.

Henry, through events I don't want to spoil in case you'd like to read the trilogy, is now a leg breaker for a Russian mobster. He's not happy with how things have turned out and looking to pills to dull life for him. That's until his boss tells him to watch over a young hot-shot baseball prospect with a wicked gambling habit. Oh, and did I mention this prospect was drafted by the Mets which brings Henry back to NYC, where his troubles all started?

I just eat this crime stuff up and Charlie Huston is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors but this installment felt a little flat to me. What makes me like Henry Thompson, that he is flawed and makes shaky decisions, wore on me as the series, and this book, went on. How long can he go with making the bad move and not have something planned out that goes a little right? I was also a little disappointed that some issues from the first book weren't addressed as he does end up back in New York after all. I am not sure of the planning of the series, but it seemed that the first book was written, originally, as a stand alone and the this book feels more like a sequel to the second book. Good stuff here but not great stuff.

My Grade: B-

LL

Ed's Mini Book Review - Sleepless by Charlie Huston

Cover of Sleepless: A Novel

I'll start by saying that Charlie Huston is one of my favorite writers so I may be a little biased in this review. Having long been a fan of the Joe Pitt casebooks as well as his Henry Thompson books, needless to say I was rather stoked at a new Huston book and this time a stand alone like The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death.

While reading Sleepless, I couldn't help but feel like I was reading something with just a ton if different influences, many of which I have an interest in as well. We have a look into the online MMO gamer world (i.e. World of Warcraft and the like) and I am sure the research for that must have been a lot of fun. Just plug yourself down in front of the computer and game til your eyeballs dry out, get some more Mountatin Dew and get right back at it. Huston also treats the reader to something that has been a bit on our minds, in a collective sub-conscious and that is the whole 'viral thriller' trope with the spread of a disease that has no cure. As an aside, this has been something that I have been reading a lot of lately though more into the zombie virus theme but I think that this is something that our collective society has had on the brain (mmmm, more brains!!!) with the fear of chemical weapons and such. This might explain the popularity of zombies again with best sellers such as World War Z. Eh, just my two cents.

We also get some typical Huston good ol' crime fiction as the story centers around an idealistic undercover narcotics officer as he investigates the possible underground distribution of a drug that can possibly cure the Sleepless virus that has spread around the world. And what a world Huston paints for us. We get a dystopian future not unlike the Escape from New York film or even yet, Strange Days, where private security protects the rich from a world with little order due to the spread of the Sleepless virus.

Weaving all of these elements may seem a bit ambitious but more and more, with every book, Huston is proving himself a master of his craft. Tight, suspenseful and ultimately heart wrenching, Sleepless is a book I can't recommend enough and it will leave you just that, sleepless, as you won't want to put it down.


A+

LL

Reading List - March

Image by ~ Phil Moore via Flickr

My updated reading list though I got off track from last months' list but I think that'll be a normal thing for me.

Sleepless by Charlie Huston

Thunder and Ashes by Z. A. Recht

Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Scott Pilgrim Vol. 1 by Bryan Lee O'Malley

Dark Half by Stephen King

And just around the corner, Changes, the new book in the Dresden Files.

LL

My Dead Body

Charlie Huston's new book, My Dead Body, the last of the Joe Pitt casebooks is out now!

If you haven't read any of Charlie Huston's work, go do so forthwith. If you haven't read any of the Joe Pitt casebooks, then do so forth-soon. Stephen King raves about Huston's work and I do too, though people may take Stephen King's word for it more than mine.

Summer Readings

I didn't do as much reading over the Summer as I would have liked but here is a list of what I did read.

Devil May Care by Sebastian Faulks (writing as Ian Fleming)
Patient Zero by Jonathan Mayberry
Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston
The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby

A few graphic novels/trades
Transmetropolitan vol. 4
Scapled vol. 1 & 2
Criminal vol. 4
Fables vol. 5

more if I can remember them....


Just started
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
Thunder & Ashes by Z.A. Recht