Customer Reviews

Six Bad Things

5 star:		(34)
4 star:		(18)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I love it when I find an author that thrills and excites me when I read their work. You know the one-your pulse quickens when you turn to page one and maintains until you finish the story. I hate it when I have to wait for the next installment of scintillating adventures. Charlie Huston is someone I've discovered, and I can't wait to read more and will follow his career with my hard-earned cash. Six Bad Things is the second book of a trilogy.

Former minor league baseball player Hank Thompson has a problem. He figured he'd be safe living the good life in Mexico with the $4 million he stole from the Russian Mafia just before leaving New York. Wrong! Now three years later a chatty Russian backpacker (who is actually a bounty hunter) is asking dangerous questions and Hank figures he'd best head back north. The lives of his family might well depend on it. On the way to taking care of business Hank will face a passel of bad guys who want to interrupt his trip. Nothing is easy for Hank.

I haven't read Caught Stealing yet, but you'd better believe I'll have it in my hands shortly. Then I'm going to settle in for what is probably going to be an entertaining ride, if it's anything like Six Bad Things.

If you like your suspense hard-boiled and don't mind violence, run, don't walk, to the bookstore. This book is fast-paced, exciting, believable and occasionally funny. Huston is a grand storyteller; you'll slip into the plot and buy into the "if this happened to me-well, that's just what I would do" mentality.

This is the sequel to Huston's "Caught Stealing". "Caught Stealing" was a terrific thriller that kept a frenetic pace throughout and had terrific twists and turns in the plot.

"Six Bad Things" keeps the same frenetic pace. There were fewer twists and turns in the plot than its predecessor, although there were still many.

In both these books, the reader has to suspend reality for a bit - they both have the classic amateur beats the pros scenario. Even so, Huston keeps the book going at a fast clip and just believable enough so the reader does not get exasperated. His main character, Hank, who is always one half step ahead of the bad guys - except for the times when they catch up to him (!) - is a good and sympathetic character even as he begins his descent into violence. Huston's bad guys are all very good. The reader gets up close looks at all of them, and all have depth and character.

The best part of Huston's plot style are the many times Hank is put into Hobson Choice situations with one alternative worse than the other...or the third or the fourth.

The worst part of "Six Bad Things" is that I do not think it would be as nearly as good if the reader has not read "Caught Stealing". It may be able to stand alone, but knowing what went on in "Caught Stealing" and how Hank became who he is certainly improves this book. It is why this review is almost a review of both (I'd give "Caught Stealing" 5 stars for the more complex plot).

I would recommend this book alone, but highly recommend it for those who have already read "Caught Stealing". This is the second in a trilogy. I look forward to the third.

There is probably the literary equivalent of the "chick flick." This isn't it.

Hank Thompson seems like your average beach bum. An American ex-pat whiling away his days on Mexico's Yucatan coast - sun, surf, a beach bungalow, passive owner of an open-air beach bar dive. But as the story unfolds, we learn he is also a man with a history. A dangerous man living off a pile - a big pile - of cash that its rightful thieves want back. When a Russian backpacker unwittingly blows Hank's Mexican cover, he heads back across the border to protect his family and resume his briefly interrupted trail of mayhem.

With this backdrop, author Charlie Huston takes us on an extraordinary odyssey of evasion and murder unparalleled in pop fiction. Huston's lean and uneven, slightly nonlinear style is surprisingly effective. With shades of Boston Teran's sinister "God is a Bullet", or of Cormac McCarthy were he a Californian beach dude writing on while on Quaaludes, this is simply not your average thriller. Drugs, hookers, psychotic surfers, Las Vegas at its seamiest, the flat out depths of despair in society - this is "Six Bad Things". Addictive, engaging, powerful fiction. But like I said, it's not for everyone. For the rest, there's always "The Ya Ya Sisterhood".

Charlie Huston has done it again. This is a strong self confident follow up to his stunning first novel "Caught Stealing." From the beaches of Yucatan to the back roads of Cali and all the way to the heart of the beast Las Vegas. This is one cranked up rode hard full bore mother of a novel.

One word of cation, don't start reading SIX BAD THINGS if you have anything else on the plate. It will take your life and make you forget little things like going to work, or the kids soccer game or that medication you had to pick up for your invalid father in law.

Yes it is more addictive than crack. But it's also a hell of a lot more fun.

For those of you, like me, who were afflicted with the mindless zombie Brain-Crave of "MORE!" at the finish of Huston's incredible debut, "Caught Stealing", you can now withdraw your withered arms from the narrow slats of that boarded-up bookstore you've been hassling for the last twelve months, and dig into another slab of prime Crime.
Hank Thompson, one of contemporary fiction's most violent victims of circumstance, finds that Mexico isn't quite the peaceful haven he's been relying on since he first fled the impromptu New York chain of violence he was forced to commit after agreeing to watch his neighbor's cat. His perfect beach existence is suddenly capsized by a chatty Russian backpacker and now Hank must walk back into the very center of the storm he left behind. His family's lives depend on it.
Huston's second novel has more than made good on the surly promise of the first and leaves a bloody I.O.U. for the mayhem that is yet to come. Huston's blistering sense of plot and pacing, as well as his astonishing eye for character, makes this book a must-have.
If you've already read him, you know what I mean. If you haven't, I honestly don't know what the hell you're waiting for.
As mean and funny and satisfying as seeing your best friend take a line drive right in the nuts. It just doesn't get any better than this.

I enjoyed this book and give it an overall high recommendation. It is a good follow through from the first book. However, the second book does not seem to maintain the same level of urgent and compelling tension. It starts out well but drags just a little in the middle. But the ending is well worth the effort.

Compared to the first, there is more humor and more disussion of sports. The humor is ok but all the football talk adds nothing to the plot after the first couple chapters and becomes fairly distracting toward the end.

Not to worry though. The last third of the book makes up for any shortcomings. The scenes are very compelling and disturbing, not so much for the violence and gore as for the brilliant portrayal of depraved and sickening people. The excellent characterization shows a glimse of a brutal, ugly world that people love to look at from the safety and comfort of their normal, sane lives. The reasons that people love to rubberneck at traffic accidents are same reasons people will enjoy this book.

Charlie Huston is ridiculously talented. I found a copy of Caught Stealing and ripped through it, got Six Bad Things right away, and read straight through this morning just stopping once to grab some food. It's the kind of book that you want to race to the end of to know what happens, but at the same time you never really want it to end. These books are unlike anything I usually read, and I mean that in the best possible way. No punches are pulled, no conventions left unturned. This is whip-smart writing that's pretty much unbeatable. If there's any justice, Huston's going to be huge.

When I read Charlie Huston's CAUGHT STEALING I fell hard for Hank Thompson. What girl wouldn't! He's good to his folks, faithful to his friends and willing to sit your cat.

So when I opened SIX BAD THINGS, I wondered, can a guy who had endured so much punishment survive more horrors with his human goodness in tact?

That's what is so great about SIX BAD THINGS. By the end Hank had descended into hell, and yet I'd still risk being alone with him.

Hurry up, Huston! Where's Book Three?

L. Smith

I wrote a rave review for Huston's first book, and was excited to get swept away with this one.

Oh well, you can't win them all. The book was action packed, but the complexity of the character got lost in this book, and the plot hinges on entirely unrealistic premises, that the protagonist would simply drop in on his parents after being on the FBI most wanted list (who would think of looking for him there!!??) and that he would just send money to a friend and simply page him to his parents' phone number when he got to town.

I got through the book, liked some of the "Natural Born Killer" aspects of it, but generally found it lacking. But, just so you know, I went out and got Huston's last book, Already Dead. I'm not ready to give up on this writer yet!

I really enjoyed Charlie Huston's first novel, Caught Stealing. The "Pulp Fiction" style of writing was fresh and exciting. The story of the guy in the wrong place at the wrong time intrigued me and the character development really drew me in (almost to the point where I felt like I knew this guy, back in school!). For lack of a better word, I "cared" about the hero, Hank Thompson, and was anxious to see how he'd manage to pull himself through the mess he was involved in. It was impressive to see how he held onto his (somewhat warped) sense of morality while fighting his way through the world of high crime.
(** minor spoiler alert **)
Six Bad Things was a disappointment for me. Not because the writing style lost it's vigor; not because the story became any less exciting; but because our Hero began to slip down the wrong path. When Hank began taking drugs to help get him "up" enough to handle the day and "down" enough to overcome the uppers, I lost the respect I had for the character (if that makes any sense). The story was still exciting, it still had all the "pulp fiction" elements that every guy will love, but I found it difficult to continue root for our hero that took the wrong path; almost as if he was succumbing to the world he was trying so hard to battle out of.

It's as simple as that; I didn't like the path the "hero" took to deal with the mess he was in. The novel was still entertaining, I was simply disappointed in the decisions of the character that had drawn me in so.