Product Description

“One of the most remarkable prose stylists to emerge from the noir tradition in this century.”
–Stephen King

“Hard-boiled horror, pulp noir vampires, decaying urban souls– you’re gonna need a shower after this one. . . . [Huston] kicks down the door of horror.”
–Fangoria, on Already Dead

There’s only so much room on the Island, only so much blood, and Manhattan’s Vampyre Clans aren’t interested in sharing. So when the Vyrus-infected dregs of New York’s outer boroughs start creeping across the bridges and through the tunnels, the Clans want to know why.

Bad luck for PI and general hard case Joe Pitt.

See, Joe used to be a Rogue, used to work off his own dime, picked his own gigs, but tight times and a terminally ill girlfriend pushed him into the arms of the renegade Society Clan. Now he has all the cash and blood he needs, but at a steep price. The price tonight is crossing the bridge, rolling to Coney Island, finding the Freak Clan, and figuring out what’s driving that bunch of savages to scratch at the Society’s door. No need to look far. The answer lies around the corner in Gravesend. Convenient, all those graves.

From uptown to the boardwalk, war drums are beating. Murderous family feuds and personal grudges are being drawn and brandished, along with the long knives. Blood will spill and, big surprise, Joe’s in the middle. But hey, why should this night be different from any other?

Sunset to sunrise: put off a war, keep your head attached to your neck, and save your girl. Check. Joe’s on the case.


Praise for Charlie Huston and his Joe Pitt novels

“In conceiving his world (a New York City divided by vampire clans, each with different reasons to hate Pitt), Huston gives a fading genre a fresh afterlife. [Grade:] A.”
–Entertainment Weekly

“[Huston] creates a world that is at once supernatural and totally familiar, imaginative, and utterly convincing.”
–The Philadelphia Inquirer

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #28912 in Books
• Published on: 2007-12-26
• Released on: 2007-12-26
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 223 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780345495877
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Huston's third Joe Pitt vampire novel (after Already Dead and No Dominion) takes his Manhattan-based hard-boiled hero on a dangerous trip into the undead communities across the bridge in Brooklyn. The various vampire clans in New York are on the brink of conflict. Leadership has fallen apart, and to make things worse, a Van Helsing is running amok and has recently murdered a longtime supplier of contraband blood. Worst of all, Pitt's AIDS-stricken girlfriend, Evie, is in the hospital failing fast. Once again, he's faced with an almost classical dilemma: infecting her with the vampire virus will destroy the illness that's killing her, but she'll be a vampire. Sent to Brooklyn to meet with a rogue clan of carnival freak vampires, Pitt ends up battling a group of radical Jewish bloodsuckers called the lost tribe of Gibeah. As always, Huston's formidable writing chops are on full display: his action scenes are unparalleled in crime fiction and his dialogue is so hip and dead-on that Elmore Leonard should be getting nervous. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter 1

I DON'T LIKE HIM.

I don't like the way he smells. I don't like the way he looks. I don't like his shoes. If I stuck a blade in him and drank the blood that shot out of the open wound, I wouldn't like the way he tastes.

But Terry told me to be cool.

So I don't kill the guy.

-You can't get somethin' for nothin', is all I'm sayin'.

Terry nods, waves some of the thick cigar smoke away from his face.

-No doubt, no doubt.

The guy I don't like blows another cloud off his stogie.

-If I bring the Docks into your thing, I got to know what's in it for my members. Not like I'm here for my own self. I'm an elected representative, it's the members decide these things, and they decide nothin' they don't know what they got comin' on their end of the deal.

Terry coughs into his hand.

-Well, like I say, the way we work here, the way we, you know, like to go about this kind of thing, is with the understanding that we're all working toward a greater good. The Society, it's not just, you know, a Clan in the traditional sense. We're not just trying to get along and go along. We've got goals. We're all about, and I'm not telling you anything you don't already know, but we're all about empowerment for anyone and everyone infected with the Vyrus. And does that mean folks that aren't even in the Society? You bet it does. But does that also mean achieving our goal will be easier with as united a front as possible? Absolutely. What I'm, you know, getting at is, whether you bring the Docks into the Society or not, you'll still reap the rewards when we break through one day, but, man, we could sure use as much help as possible right now.

The Docks Boss nods, ponders, chews the frayed end of his hand-rolled Dominican, and glances at the goon he brought with him.

-I think he's tellin' me there ain't shit in it for us.

The goon shifts the baseball bat perched on his shoulder.

-Sounds like it.

-Sounds like he's tellin' me he wants somethin' for nothin'.

The goon nods.

-Sounds like it.

The Docks Boss takes the cigar from his mouth, points it at Terry.

-That what you're tellin' me, Bird?

Terry presses the palms of his hands together and puts the tips of his fingers at his chin, a prayerful moment.

-What I'm trying to get across is that there's something in it for all of us. Me, you, your man there, Joe here, your members, the Society, all the Clans and Rogues and even the folks out there that never heard of the Vyrus. I'm talking about how we're gonna make the world a bigger and more wondrous place when the day comes we go public and let them know we're here. I'm saying that there's something in it for everyone. Every person on Mother Earth, man.

The goon raises a finger, a point's been proved.

-Yeah, he's saying there ain't nothin' in it for us.

The Docks Boss pushes his chair back, stands, drops the smoldering stub on the floor and stomps on it.

-C'mon, Gooch, let's get the boys and get the fuck out of here.

Terry shrugs, rises.

-Well, I can't say I'm not disappointed, but it's not the first time we've been turned down.

He puts out his hand.

-And I just want you to know, we're still fighting for you, man. Anytime you want to join the struggle, we'll be happy to have you by our side.

The Docks Boss looks Terry up and down, from his Birkenstocks, past his hemp jeans and his fur is murder t-shirt, up to his graying ponytail.

-You're a freak, Bird. We ain't never gonna have nothin' to do with you and your hippies and your college kids and your queers and the rest.

He pulls out one of the cigars that stick up from the breast pocket of his cheap suit, bites the end off and spits it at Terry's feet.

-And I'm gonna tell Predo as much when I go see him.

He scrapes a match alight on the surface of the kitchen table and puffs the cigar to life.

-The Docks are a serious Clan. We make the move over the bridge here and swing our weight behind someone, they're gonna know their backs are covered. You don't want to give somethin' back for that security, to hell with you. Predo knows value. And he'll pay for it.

He drops the match.

-Hell, I only came to see you out of curiosity. Had to see for myself it was true what they say. How one of the top Clans over here is run by a pansy.

Terry tugs at the soul patch below his lower lip.

-Well, if that's how you see things, that's how you see things. Probably all for the best that you set up housekeeping with the Coalition. And still, still, I wish you nothing but health and happiness, man.

The Docks Boss rolls his eyes and heads for the door.

-Fuck you, Bird.

Terry looks at me.

-You mind showing them out, Joe?

I open the door.

-Sure, no problem.

I close the door behind us and lead the Boss and Gooch down the hall toward the front room where his other two boys are cooling their heels.

The Boss steps alongside me.

-A guy like you, a regular-lookin' fella, what the fuck are you doin' with that clown?

I crack a knuckle.

-It's a job.

Gooch laughs.

-A job? Hope you get paid through the nose, havin' to live in the middle of this freak show.

I stop at the front room door, rest my hand on the knob.

-What you gonna do, it's all I know.

-Too bad for you.

-If you say so.

I open the door and stand aside to let the Docks Boss step into the room ahead of me.

Stupid fuck that he is, he goes right in and only stops when he sees the headless bodies of his boys on the floor, and Hurley swinging a fire axe at his face. I got to give it to him, he does manage to get his arm in front of his head before the blade comes down.

As his arm is hitting the floor and Hurley is going into his backswing, the Boss has got his remaining hand in his jacket, going for the iron bulging at his side. Hurley takes his hack Lou Gehrig style and the other arm comes off and slaps into the wall, the gun dropping.

The Boss stomps, splinters the floorboards beneath the sheets of plastic Hurley spread before he went to work. He kicks the body of one of his headless bodyguards.

-Fucker! Useless faggot!

He stands in the middle of the room, the spray from his stumps slowing to a steady trickle as the Vyrus clots the blood, scabs visibly forming over the wounds.

He looks at Hurley, spits blood at him.

-That all you good for, pussy, a fuckin' ambush? Come on! I can take it.

He sets his feet, turns his face upward, eyes wide open.

-Come on, pussy!

Hurley hefts the axe over his head.

-Just as ya say, den.

The Docks Boss screams as the blade drops. He stops when it splits his head down the middle.

Stupid fucker.

All those cigars, they kept him from smelling anything else. Otherwise he'd have whiffed the reek of blood the second I opened the kitchen door; he would have known there was a problem. In that tight hallway, he could have taken me apart. Another reason to like smoking.

Gooch leans into the room and looks at his boss flopping on the floor. He ducks back as a last jet of arterial blood sprays the ceiling and the dead thing goes still.

-Jesus, that's gonna be hell to clean up.

Hurley gives the axe a jerk and pulls it from the Docks Boss' face.

-Ayuh.

Gooch points at the mess.

-I ain't helpin' ta clean this. That wasn't part of the deal.

Hurley wipes the blade of the axe on the Boss' shirtfront, sees the cigars and pulls one from the dead man's pocket.

-No one said ya gotta clean nuttin'.

-Just so it's clear.

Hurley finds a match, thumbs a flame from it and puts it to the cigar.

-It's plenty clear, boyo.

Gooch points his baseball bat at the corpses.

-So you guys clean up your mess and I'll round up the rest of the Docks and let them know we're joinin' with ya.

Hurley looks at the cigar, wrinkles his nose, and drops it to hiss in the Boss' blood.

-Boyo, the way ya fellas sell one 'nother out, we would nae have ya ta clean our privies.

Gooch is about as quick as Boss was. He gets the bat up in a hurry to block Hurley's axe. But the axe never leaves Hurley's shoulder.

I tickle Gooch's earlobe with the barrel of his dead boss' revolver.

-Hey, Gooch.

He doesn't move.

-Yeah?

-I like this freak show.

I put a bullet in his ear. And when he's on the floor, I put a couple more in.

Hurley shakes his head.

-What's da point a dat, Joe?

-No point. Just that he was an asshole.

Terry comes down the hall and looks at the mess.

He takes off his glasses and bows his head.

-What a waste.

I put a Lucky in my mouth.

-If you say so.

-Labor should be our natural ally. They could have been a big help.

-A big help fucking things up. If this is the best Brooklyn has to offer, we don't have much to worry about.

Terry slips the glasses up his nose and gives me a look.

-The best isn't the problem, Joe.

He heads back down the hall toward the kitchen.

-The worst is what we have to worry about. The worst is still over the bridge.

He turns in the doorway.

-But they'll be coming.

I don't got enough problems.

I don't got enough problems dealing with the day-to-day shit that rains from the sky in Manhattan, now I got to start worrying about it being shipped in from Brooklyn. That's what happens when you get a regular job, other people's shit becomes your problem. 'Course, by the time you got that figured, it's up around your ears and you're just trying to keep your fucking mouth shut.

-Cat got your tongue?

I look up from the square of linoleum between my shoes and try a smile. It doesn't work.

-No, babe, just tired.

-You didn't have to come by.

-Sure I did. What else am I gonna do?

-You know how to flatter a girl, Joe....

Customer Reviews

Hard -Boiled Horror Noir...A Gripper!!
Charlie Huston returns with his third Joe Pitt novel, "Half the Blood in Brooklyn." Huston is an author to reckon with whether in his Henry Thompson trilogy or his ongoing Joe Pitt efforts. He 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. 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.

The world surrounding Joe Pitt is a new world indeed. These are stories of an urban horror noir, if you will. Huston has created a civilization in which surviving vampires (infected by the "Vyrus") have congregated in a loose series of "clans" (almost gang- like) throughout Manhatten Island...each with its own governing structure and its own borders and spheres of influence and operation. There are generic "rules" that exist among all vampires such as very limited feeding on uninfected humans etc. but the rest of the governmental and societal structure of each community or clan is pretty much left to local determination.

This is where Huston shines as his characters are drawn into situations and events that sometimes make you forget the blood dependence of the characters due to the philosophical, psychological and sociological conflicts occurring between individual characters as well as between and amongst the feuding communities. There are underlying currents of loyalty, betrayal, power struggles, compassion, personal ambition etc. that play out in the back story in each Joe Pitt novel. Huston makes effective use of the philosophical clashes in individual and community value systems.

In this latest effort, Joe Pitt has abandoned his rogue status to become chief of security for The Society and his long time friend, Terry Bird...mainly to find stability while caring for his dying girlfriend, Evie. Vampires from surrounding areas, mainly Brooklyn, are sneaking into Manhatten and threatening the balance of order on the Island. Other outlying clans are seeking to merge with the larger Manhatten Clans such as the Society and The Coalition. Joe is sent to Brooklyn with Society council leader Lydia to check out the Freak Clan. They are quickly caught up in ongoing violence as the force that is driving the smaller clans out of Brooklyn becomes known and Joe and Lydia must fight their way back home.

Back home, Joe is faced with political decisions between powerful clan leaders, friends become enemies, other friends die, and he must make an agonizing decision about whether to "save" Evie or not. By book's end, war is brewing, Joe is seeking revenge, leaders and sides have changed, and Joe is once again on his own. One warning to the new reader, these books are getting more difficult to join in midstream without the background and characters of previous novels. I urge the interested reader to start from the beginning of the series rather than trying to figure things out using "Half the Blood of Brooklyn" as a stand- alone.

Huston takes the Pitt series up a notch with this one
I dislike it when a reviewer gives away a critical plot twist in a book. So I'll just say without any resort to proof that where Huston takes the Joe Pitt series with this third book in the series will be looked back upon four to five years from now as the place where he decided to expand the scope of Pitt's world. And, in doing so, giving lot of room for this series to have the kind of run the Matthew Scudder novels have had.

The Joe Pitt series has always had a surfeit of inventiveness and irony, laid on top of a fast moving, stream of consciousness style. However, much like playing a game of Go, the working space on his playing board was starting to get a bit crowded. Dominant characters had been established in the first two books and threatened to turn future plots into set-piece affairs.

Half the Blood of Brooklyn removes that danger early in the book and creates wide open room for Pitt to roam in as we exit the book. If for any reason you were starting to get tired of where Huston was going here, don't worry. He's got some very exciting territory ahead of him.

"War and Pieces"
Comparisons and superlatives be damned; there simply isn't a more talented writer of American fiction today than the hip, irreverent, and ever-so-clever Charlie Huston. This guy could write the recipe for a tuna casserole and make it a page-turner.

Always one to shun convention and propriety, Huston rips another scorcher free of distracting quotation marks or chapters. Back is vampyre leg-breaker Joe Pitt in this third installment of Huston's nightmare fantasy of the undead of Manhattan, another literary feast of enough blood and gore to prove the title an understatement. If you're not familiar with Huston's brilliantly twisted twist on tired and familiar vampire lore, welcome to present day New York, where Joe Pitt and his ilk are the victims of an AIDS-like "vyrus", condemning it's hosts to near-eternal life out-of-the sun and with an insatiable demand for human blood. Huston's vampires, who walk undetected among us, have divided into clans along traditional societal lines, each with their own approach and philosophies to their affliction. Forget capes and bats and castles on crags: "Half the Blood of Brooklyn" and its prequels are 100% urban, urbane, and contemporary, more Sam Spade than Count Dracula, and so-nearly believable that you'll often forget the, um, "diet" of Pitt and his buddies.

Out hero and former rogue hit man Pitt has joined up with his old buddy, Terry Bird, hippie leader of the progressive "Society" clan of lower Manhattan. But there's trouble in the boroughs, as someone or something is driving the renegade clans across the bridges onto the island, threatening to drain an already dwindling supply of blood. And when the "Candy Man" winds up carved into a dozen pieces in the basement of his Greenwich Village shop, Terry sends Pitt, distracted by his "civilian" girlfriend's losing battle with cancer, to Coney Island as part of an elaborate alliance scheme. There he encounters rival gangs bizarre by even Houston's whacked standards - a "Middle Earth meets "Rings-of-Hell" concoction that Tolkien or Dante would have killed to conjure.

Huston's fiction can stand in a league of its own solely on this fresh and creative approach to an old storyline. But what sets Huston so far above the pack of clones and wannabes is the easy brilliance with which he skewers and parodies, in one fell swoop, popular crime drama, horror, political correctness, and in this outing, even Orthodox Jews! Yet his attacks are subtle and playful, the dark humor and delicious cynicism shining through the blood, guts, gore, grit, and filth that fits so neatly in Huston's unique brand of prose.

If you haven't discovered Charlie Huston or Joe Pitt yet (or for that matter, Hank Thompson of the "Caught Stealing", "Six Bad Things", and "A Dangerous Man" trilogy), don't succumb to the "I don't read vampire crap" trap, and yourself a favor: Huston is the real deal - you've got to give him a try.