Customer Reviews

My Dead Body (Library Edition)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is the fifth and final book in the Joe Pitt series. Pitt is a vampyre in Manhattan. Vampyres are much more infected than they are mystical. They lead a harder life than they do in other stories. No Twilight or Sookie-style vampires here. This world of vampyres is a hard one, where only the strong survive (And even then, just barely.)

The Island is an enclosed community of vampyres, geographically sectioned off and ran by different clans. Joe starts off in the series as a troubleshooter for the different clans, but not beholden to any one group - rare, but Joe's skills in handling the "dirty work" make his existence outside of clan politics possible. Each book is self-contained, but does have an overall story from the first book to the last. Things happen in every book that shakes up Joe's world, so although you can read the series out of order, it's better to start at the beginning.

These books are definitely hard boiled. Joe's character reminds me of Parker from Richard Stark's books. He does whatever he has to survive or to accomplish his goal. Huston has created one of the greatest hard cases in modern fiction. And I don't want to shortchange the world he has created. The political workings of the clans, the explanation of how being a vampyre works, etc - make it easy to immerse yourself into this world.

I don't want to spoil ANY of the series, let alone the final book. So let me just say "My Dead Body" is a great book in series of great books, that does a fantastic job of finishing up the story of Joe Pitt.

Also - if you like this series, please also read the Hank Thompson trilogy by Charlie Huston. They're pretty amazing as well.

As my previous reviews stand witness, I'm a huge Charlie Huston fan; an evangelist for his quirky prose and off beat story lines, fast action and unapologetic violence. As a series, the "Vampyre" novels with the blood guzzling maverick bad guy Joe Pitt embody all that is Charlie Huston: hip, irreverent, cynical black humor wrapped around a larger-than-life protagonist who, if not loved, is certainly respected. So after devouring Huston's four previous installments of the Vampyre-Ronin Joe Pitt's after dark mayhem, and was really looking forward to episode five, the final chapter in this gore-splattered recharge of a tired genre.

And I was - disappointed. OK, I said it.

In fairness, "My Dead Body" does a good job of tying up the looses ends of its four predecessors. All the familiar faces are back for a final curtain call - the the buttoned down brutality of Dexter Predo, Terry Bird's "you know" progressive/liberal contradictions, the "Count" - punk Renfield turned Enclave leader, the brilliant and brainy "civilian" Amanda Horde, and of course Pitt heart throb Evie, Hurley, Sela, Digga - even the "wraiths" make a cameo - along with a cast of virtually every other clan leader and notable flowing through the pages from "Already Dead" through last year's "Every Last Drop". The central theme - Pitt's infiltration of the "Cure" house to free a young woman impregnated with the supposed Vampyre Messiah by her infected boyfriend - serves only as a convenient vehicle to find a conclusion that should have ended with the discovery of the "Hell Hole" in the previous 'Every Last Drop." But as rich as this ghoulish reunion of Vampyre politics, clan civil war, and Amanda's medical experimentation may have been, a worn out and worn down and blood-starved Joe Pitt left me wanting; the aging warhorse spending more time contemplating his own death than cracking heads as he fades away, piece-by-bloody-body piece. In what is completely uncharacteristic of Huston, a found the pacing uneven, even sleepy in parts, overdosed with arcane medical science fiction and the very real need to dispatch more justice and redemption that Huston's ambitious conclusion could contain within the limits of a 300-page paper back.

Should you read it? You bet - if you've been a fan for the distance, you'll definitely want to see how it all wraps up. If you've never read the series, this is definitely not the starting point - no matter how well it may have been written. But if you've not discovered "Already Dead" yet, you're in for a bizarre and entertaining literary treat.

For me, I'm sorry to see such a great series go out on a rather mediocre note, but hey - I'm in the minority here. Plenty of five star reviews to send this one away, and whether or not I agree, it doesn't change my conviction that Charlie Huston is the most interesting active writer of American pop crime fiction.

The five Joe Pitt novels are extraordinary examples of stylistic prose and horror noir at their best. "My Dead Body" is designed to end the 5 novel arc and as such, it ties a lot of loose ends together but the casual reader should be advised that "My Dead Body" is not a good novel to first experience this excellent series. In fact, each subsequent novel has become murkier and more entangling than the previous entry and there are parts of this finale that become deeply metaphysical and philosophical. And be forewarned, Huston writes in a sparse economical manner, usually in the first person, and the dialogue flows in real time without each character's comments being identified textually which can lead to confusion at times for the inattentive reader. His styling is in a "stream of consciousness" mode that sometimes seems to leap off the page and in other instances the reader is forced to reread the paragraph to get the proper character identified as the speaker.

In "My Dead Body", Charlie Huston continues the disturbing portrait of his new strangely intriguing world in which gang-like "clans" of vampires (humans who have been infected with the Vyrus) have divided Manhatten Island into territories and fiefdoms, each with its own governing structure, borders, spheres of influence, and purpose in existing. Huston has effectively created a world where vampires coexist with unknowing humans and where the sociological, psychological, and philosophical conflicts between individuals and between clans make for stunning parodies and commentaries on our lifestyles. Indeed, the loyal reader often forgets the vampire/blood dependence angle as the action and the emotions mirror those of any great noir novel that visits eternal themes of loyalty, betrayal, greed, and passion.

Joe has been hiding underground since the action in "Every Last Drop" where he initiated a war among the vampyre clans when he agrees to return to the dangerous world above to rescue Chubby Freeze's daughter who has been impregnated by her vampyre boyfriend--the possibilites of that child are enormous; however, Joe's real motivation is to please his old girl friend, Evie, and to see her once more. Within steps of returning to the surface world, Joe is embroiled in danger, double crosses, and gore as, seemingly, all the clans and all the major characters from the previous novels want to see him dead. Through artful and not so artful negotiations and manipulations, Joe soon has everyone at one another's throats (no pun intended).

While trying to survive and rescue the young couple, Joe stumbles upon a secret developed by Amanda Horde's research that could effectively destroy the entire world as the vampyres know it. Loyal readers of the series will experience the savagery of the Coalition, the Society, The Enclave, and The Hood at war with each other and with Joe. Similarly, Huston ties up the loose ends involving Digga, Predo, Terry Bird, Hurley, the Count, Sela and the rest of our surviving cast of characters. "My Dead Body" is a wild ride with many unexpected stops that, all in all, is a fitting climax to the Joe Pitt saga. I highly recommend the series, but be aware, it is a long way and a far cry from the "Twilight" and the "Sookie Stackhouse" novels.

Not so much a conclusion as an erasing of what came before. This one doesn't stand alone. If you haven't read the earlier books, this will leave you scratching your head. These "endings" to various story lines could have been done sooner. I wonder if the undead will return to see how things are in the new social structure.

His books are always a cut above the rest, the behemoth amongst ants. Only Charlie can make the people of such a great series. They aren't "characters", predictable or stoic but instead breathe in a world we visit through Charlie's words.

My Dead Body is Charlie Huston's fifth and final entry in the Joe Pitt saga, a hard-boiled horror noir series about vampyre clans in modern-day Manhattan. The Island is divided into geographical territories run by various clans including The Society, The Coalition, The Hood, The Enclave, and other minor clans that are fictional paradigms of criminal enterprises as they exist today.

This sweeping finale leaves no question unanswered, and no character unvisited as Pitt makes the rounds with Terry Bird, Hurley, Lydia, Dexter Predo, Grave Digga, The Count, Evie, Amanda Horde and Sela. Readers new to the series who haven't read the first four books may find themselves lost in the complicated relationships that govern character motivations, though the novel is comprehensive enough to be read without prior a introduction. Huston's gripping, stylistic prose pulls no punches with casual descriptions of escalating violence, and Joe Pitt's outrageous and often reckless stunts keep the roller-coaster pacing one long thrill-ride.

The story opens as Joe Pitt's self-exile in the underground sewers of Manhattan comes to an abrupt halt when Chubby Freeze requests his help in finding his missing daughter, a human impregnated by a vampyre. The potential repercussions of a hybrid child are brewing unrest among the clans who alternatively view the unborn as a savior or their damnation. Pitt--well aware that to show his face in Manhattan after starting a war between the clans would be suicide--isn't inclined to take the job until Freeze hints that Evie, Pitt's old flame, wants him to find the girl.

Once on the job, Joe tracks the girl's whereabouts from one territory to another, finding himself pursued by old enemies--head of clans who want him dead--and reverts to his old habit of artful negotiation by playing one clan off another to serve his own ends. When the investigation leads him to The Cure--Amanda Horde's high-rise penthouse located in the heart of Coalition territory--Joe's gruesome discovery of her horrific medical research on the vyrus may well prove the end of vampyre kind.

Vampire fans will find the pulp fiction Joe Pitt series a unique departure from popular romantic fantasies like Twilight and Sookie Stackhouse. If you like your vampires with more of a bite, check out the first in the series, Already Dead.

Wow. This is #5, the last book of the Joe Pitt series. and my oh my...what a series it turned out to be. I imagine that if you're reading this you've been with the series since the begining or is currently making your way through it. Pick this up quick, it wraps up the story and finishes the Vampyre war that's been ready to boil up since the start.

In a time when the word Vampire usually makes you wanna gouge somebody's eyes out or at least rack down Robert Pattinson and gut him, thankfully Joe Pitt returns in his fifth sun blisteringly brilliant novel. No gothic romance, no effete eurotrash vampires drinking wine and raping you with their eyes, this a hard boiled detective story set in a contemporary New York and even that doesn't nearly cover it.

Very few stories maintain your interest for a 2 or 3 book arc but the Joe Pitt series has never disappointed over a 5 book arc. The fact that Charlie Huston manages to pull all this together for the last book is quite the feat. All sub plots tidied up, he doesn't let down fans of the series in anyway. The beauty of this book is, its told and written in such a way you could pick it up without reading the other four and it would make perfect sense.

Read the other four, read this, read his other books. Charlie Huston is the genre writer I didn't know I was waiting for, but I am so glad he's here.

If you are looking for the definition of hard-boiled noir fiction, you do not have to go much further than Charlie Huston. In the Joe Pitt Casebook series, of which MY DEAD BODY is the last installment, Huston successfully blends together mystery and horror and delivers readers with a classic, original and, to put it mildly, bloody series.

The first line of MY DEAD BODY perfectly defines a noir story: "If you're listening to this, I'm dead." It is hard to put a book down at that point. Our protagonist has fallen upon hard times. Indeed, he is gradually falling apart and is now missing an eye, a toe, and suffers from a broken knee. We learn that Joe is trading his body parts in order to locate a non-infected pregnant girl who might be carrying a baby infected with the virus that creates Vampyres.

Joe is a man with a price on his head and living in a train tunnel on the Upper West Side, feeding as needed off the other lost souls of subterranean New York. "And when this started, I was a secret. Lived in an apartment, just like you. Well, just like you if you kept a mini-fridge of blood. When it ended I was living in a sewer. Downward mobility being a danger to my kind." He tells us this in a voiceover reminiscent of classic film noir tinged with a sense of horror that is new to the genre.

One of the things that makes this series so fresh and original is that these are not your black cape, bad teeth vampires. Joe says to the reader at one point, "No monsters in this world. Just us people." These people have been infected by an HIV-like virus that created their thirst for blood. They have allied themselves in secret, powerful clans to provide mutual aid for one another. But humans are territorial by nature, and disputes are inevitable. It is Joe's earlier work first as a private eye, then as an enforcer for The Society clan, and finally as a traitor that has landed him in his precarious position at the start of MY DEAD BODY.

Now, due in large part to Joe, long-time tensions between the clans have erupted into outright civil war over the missing girl. Some want to use the girl and her child as a symbol of cooperation and unity between the non-infected world and the infected. Others see the girl as a threat to be eliminated since she will bring the wraith of the non-infected world down upon them. And a third group sees the unborn child as needed for scientific experimentation and discovery.

But Joe's sole concern is the only person in the world he loves, Evie, who he saved in a previous novel from AIDS by giving her his infected blood to kill the disease. Now she has taken refuge in the Enclave, a mystical, possibly insane, collective of Vampyres. Evie sends words to Joe that she wants him to help find the girl, a request that he accepts just so he can see her one last time.

Another brilliant feature of this series is that Huston exploits the urban legends and paranoia of a city like New York perfectly. People racing by on subway trains can't help but wonder who or what exists in those labyrinth pitch-black tunnels. Urban vampires, like alligators in the sewers, couldn't be real, could they? When Joe comes back above ground at night, of course, he discovers that the war is getting out of control. Huston echoes here the bad old days of New York City in the 1970s, when a president of the United States told it to "drop dead" in a famous tabloid newspaper headline and nobody in their right mind would venture into a public park after nightfall.

Thankfully, things aren't nearly as bad now. But the line between order and chaos is never that strong in the best of times, and these clearly are not the best of times.

Huston captures perfectly the sense that the center is not holding and something very bad is approaching. The war between the clans threatens to be exposed. Will it result in concentration camps for Vampyres as homeland security threats? Will the non-infected insist on rounding up Vampyres for their own safety. Or do the non-infected have something even greater to worry about: that they are part-monster themselves?

Charlie Huston provides a non-stop adrenaline rush of excitement in MY DEAD BODY --- as with all his novels, it is not for the squeamish --- and he closes the series with an explosive twist. Hopefully it won't be too long before we see more additions to his impressive bibliography.

--- Reviewed by Tom Callahan

I just finished this, the last of the Joe Pitt memoirs. It was hard for me to get rolling on this one. It felt heavy and that is not normally how I feel about Huston's work. It is usually like eating ice cream (my favorite food!). It is self indulgent, easy to consume, and has great texture. However, just like eating ice cream, there comes a point where you have had enough. After reading all of the other Joe Pitt books, I was having to work a bit harder to get involved than previous installations. So I set this book aside for about a year. Last week I needed something to read, so I tapped this one on my Kindle and read it. I am SO glad I did.

This book had a lot of depth. You can tell that Huston is growing as an author. While he has always been a great story teller, here he has identified and portrayed aspects of being human while spinning a tale about monsters. In some ways, Huston's "vyrus" ridden protagonists are simply caricatures of humans, exemplifying human traits, feelings, emotions, and convictions, even though humans are, in a word, food.

This was a nice finish to the series. Even if another book emerges, this one feels like an ending. I have read nearly all of Huston's books, and what I really like is his ability to make me care what happens to all of the misguided folks he has invented. I know that I will want more ice cream later, but for right now, this feels like the right amount.