Review: Already Dead by Charlie Huston

Already DeadTitle: Already Dead
Author: Charlie Huston
Publisher: Orbit
Published:
Price: £6.99
Review Copy

There are writers you slip into and writers you have to work at and Charlie Huston is as smooth as warm butter. I was hooked from the opening line, ‘I smell them before I see them’. That’s how we’re introduced to the Vampyre and P.I. Joe Pitt though he doesn’t have a licence and I don’t think they have a licence for what he does.

In this series opener, Already Dead, he has to find a missing girl who just happens to have very rich parents and likes hanging out in places where 14-yeard old girl shouldn’t go. He also has a mess to clear up. And people aren’t making it easy for him.

It’s a compulsive read. He’s created a believable underworld of Manhattan where Vampyre clans have carved-up the island and have ways of keeping their existence out of the sunlight. One of those ways is Pitt.

Huston doesn’t let up with the action but still manages to slip in moments of reflection from Pitt’s recent and not so recent history. For a blood feasting Vampyre Pitt has a quite a heart.

I sucked this book dry and I’m craving my next fix.

16 thoughts on “Review: Already Dead by Charlie Huston

  1. gav

    Thanks – it’s more a a noir story that happens to have vampires in it I think.

    He treats the cause as a virus and biological rather than mystical and it’s more gritty than gothic romance.

    Don’t know if that’ll sway you?

    Reply
  2. gav

    Thanks – it’s more a a noir story that happens to have vampires in it I think.

    He treats the cause as a virus and biological rather than mystical and it’s more gritty than gothic romance.

    Don’t know if that’ll sway you?

    Reply
  3. gav

    Thanks – it’s more a a noir story that happens to have vampires in it I think.

    He treats the cause as a virus and biological rather than mystical and it’s more gritty than gothic romance.

    Don’t know if that’ll sway you?

    Reply
  4. Graeme

    These books are one of my lucky finds this year :o ) After reading Laurell K. Hamilton, Huston’s books have really restored my faith in good vampire books. Can’t wait for ‘All the blood in Brooklyn’…

    Reply
  5. Graeme

    These books are one of my lucky finds this year :o ) After reading Laurell K. Hamilton, Huston’s books have really restored my faith in good vampire books. Can’t wait for ‘All the blood in Brooklyn’…

    Reply
  6. Graeme

    These books are one of my lucky finds this year :o ) After reading Laurell K. Hamilton, Huston’s books have really restored my faith in good vampire books. Can’t wait for ‘All the blood in Brooklyn’…

    Reply
  7. Graeme

    These books are one of my lucky finds this year :o ) After reading Laurell K. Hamilton, Huston’s books have really restored my faith in good vampire books. Can’t wait for ‘All the blood in Brooklyn’…

    Reply
  8. gav

    You’re ahead of me. I’ve got No Dominion calling to me. Vampire tales have been getting very ‘feminine’ of late, a bit too romantic – Huston is meat and bones!

    Reply
  9. gav

    You’re ahead of me. I’ve got No Dominion calling to me. Vampire tales have been getting very ‘feminine’ of late, a bit too romantic – Huston is meat and bones!

    Reply
  10. gav

    You’re ahead of me. I’ve got No Dominion calling to me. Vampire tales have been getting very ‘feminine’ of late, a bit too romantic – Huston is meat and bones!

    Reply
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