Already Dead

by: Charlie Huston

Published by: Del Rey

Reviewed Andrea Sisco

Charlie Huston caught my attention with Six Bad Things. It was so good that I bought Caught Stealing and enjoyed it immensely. When I received Already Dead I settled in for a scintillating read and got it.

It was not, however, what I expected after reading his first two hard-boiled releases. The twist is that Huston successfully switches genres in Already Dead, from hard-boiled to vampires--and he does it with panache.

Joe Pitt (not his real name) is a reluctant vampyre who became infected as a result of a sexual encounter and is required to regularly drink blood. He prowls Manhattan where the island is over run with the undead. The city has clans who are warring and Pitt becomes involved with the Coalition who wants him to destroy the carrier of a bacteria that turns its victims into brain-eating zombie monsters. Ick! The zombies are so sloppy they're drawing unwanted attention.

At the same time Pitt is hired to locate a socialite's daughter who may have traveled from "her neck of the woods" to Pitt's "neck of the woods." And that makes him right for the job.

I like Joe Pitt. He has a subtle sense of humor and I couldn't help smiling once in awhile because Huston populates Joe's life with some interesting facts. Joe can eat garlic (it's just pretty repulsive to him). And he can see his reflection (albeit he's a much younger man in the mirror). Holy water and crosses don't seem to cause him any difficulties; he actually drank holy water once. He smells the zombies before he sees them, and he'd so enjoy moving to the suburbs if he thought he could last there. There are so many strip malls and such.

I'm not typically a fan of anything vampire. But Huston's writing gives an established genre a new twist in this crisp, fast-paced read. It is violence and gore that you want to experience even as you consider turning away.

Huston is a rising star in both hard-boiled and vampire novels. His characters are full-bodied and multi-dimensional, the plot is scintillating and the prose has a rhythm from right out of an old detective novel. You'll want to keep the lights on and peer around corners for a long while after reading Already Dead.

Armchair Interviews says: Charlie Huston's Already Dead is a must read for the fans of the undead. If you read the opening scene you'll be hooked. Actually, I'd read an advertisement if Charlie Huston wrote it. He's that good.