Product Description

Those stories you hear? The ones about things that only come out at night? Things that feed on blood, feed on us? Got news for you: they’re true. Only it’s not like the movies or old man Stoker’s storybook. It’s worse. Especially if you happen to be one of them. Just ask Joe Pitt.

There’s a shambler on the loose. Some fool who got himself infected with a flesh-eating bacteria is lurching around, trying to munch on folks’ brains. Joe hates shamblers, but he’s still the one who has to deal with them. That’s just the kind of life he has. Except afterlife might be better word.

From the Battery to the Bronx, and from river to river, Manhattan is crawling with Vampyres. Joe is one of them, and he’s not happy about it. Yeah, he gets to be stronger and faster than you, and he’s tough as nails and hard to kill. But spending his nights trying to score a pint of blood to feed the Vyrus that’s eating at him isn’t his idea of a good time. And Joe doesn’t make it any easier on himself. Going his own way, refusing to ally with the Clans that run the undead underside of Manhattan–it ain’t easy. It’s worse once he gets mixed up with the Coalition–the city’s most powerful Clan–and finds himself searching for a poor little rich girl who’s gone missing in Alphabet City.

Now the Coalition and the girl’s high-society parents are breathing down his neck, anarchist Vampyres are pushing him around, and a crazy Vampyre cult is stalking him. No time to complain, though. Got to find that girl and kill that shambler before the whip comes down . . . and before the sun comes up.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18134 in Books
• Published on: 2005-12-27
• Released on: 2005-12-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. After two hard-boiled hits, Caught Stealing and Six Bad Things, Huston does an irresistible and fiendishly original take on the vampire myth. Manhattan is teeming with the undead, the island divided into often-warring vampire clans such as the Society, the Hood and the Enclave. The most powerful is the Coalition, whose goal is to protect its members from public scrutiny and persecution. Rogue PI Joe Pitt (aka Simon), who like all vampires is infected with a virus that requires him to drink blood regularly, is hired by Marilee Horde, a prominent New York socialite, to locate her runaway teenage daughter, Amanda, who may be slumming with homeless goth kids in the East Village. Meanwhile, a "carrier" is on the loose, infecting its victims with a bacterium that turns them into brain-eating zombies. The Coalition wants Pitt to find and destroy the carrier, since the carnage the zombies are causing brings unwanted attention to the undead community. Huston has fun playing with the conventions of the genre, creating his own hip update that will appeal to fans of Quentin Tarantino and Buffy the Vampire Slayer alike. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
Already Dead is not for the squeamish. Even so, it surprised even critics who had never thought themselves fans of Count Dracula. Huston portrays a noirish, gritty, alter-Manhattan world, with political rivalries comprised of all sorts of vampires, even "revolutionary" gay and lesbian ones. The terse, hard-boiled prose and characters contain shades of Raymond Chandler, Hunter S. Thompson, and Quentin Tarantino, but are wholly original. Despite the novel’s sophistication, it’s not for everyone. "Huston deserves hardcover publication and will get it soon enough, but it’s probably true that this book’s core audience is among the young, the cool, the hip, and the unshockable" (Washington Post).

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

From Booklist
Joe Pitt is 45 but looks 28. His beauty secret? He's a vampire. Pitt resides on the Manhattan turf of the Society clan, which dreams of bringing vampires into the open and curing their virus. He also runs errands for the rival Coalition clan--stuff like snuffing zombies before they give the undead a bad name. He'd love to leave both clans behind but worries that "Vampyres in the suburbs last less than a year. Plus those places are soulless pits." He can eat garlic (although he hates it) and once drank holy water with no ill effects. Crosses are no problem, and he can see himself in the mirror. But if he steps into sunlight unprotected the virus will finish him, so he dons a white burnoose for daytime sojourns. But the dominant color is blood red as Pitt tracks a zombie bacteria carrier and endures inhuman torture in the process. Published only three months after the second entry in the author's kill-crazy Hank Thompson trilogy, this may be palate-cleansing sorbet for Huston. But it'll be a tasty treat for fans of vampire fiction and/or smart-alecky, hard-boiled crime novels. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Vampire tales for a nihilistic world
Great book. Joe Pitt is a fantastic character. The writing is first rate. The plot moves along nicely. My only complaint (and its not big enough to knock the book off the five star rating) is that it is too short! Still, the author seems to put out sequels on such a regular basis that it doesn't really matter.
If you like your vampire stories to be relevant and contemporary, then look no further.

Liked it, but didn't love it!!
The idea of organized groups of vampires, living only for the sake of being vampire struck me as problematic. No doubt Charlie Huston is a fine and accomplished writer, but this left me a little flat. I liked the main character, his outsider status even amongst the outsiders themselves, these Manhatten clans. Plausible plausibility: the ability to get the reader to believe that in the right combinations of circumstances what they are reading CAN happen.....just couldn't see it.PILATE: A Brutal Bible Tale

Good book, but I need a break
I discovered Charlie Huston recently and quickly devoured the Caught Stealing trilogy and The Shotgun Rule. I liked them all. Huston has an uncanny way of building likeable elements into the most reprehensible characters. I find myself identifying with all his protagonists, and love the pace of his work. I actually sent him an e-mail on his website after reading his first book and he replied within a day with a "thank you". Very cool.

Now to Already Dead. I have never been a fan of the vampire genre, so this was a stretch for me; but as usual with Huston, I ended up flying through the book. It is a great read. This one is more of a mystery than his other books, with a good number of twists and turns before reaching its conclusion. Huston also introduces a lot of different variants of the traditional vampire through factions and gangs, which was great. And although Already Dead is the first in a series, I didn't feel like I was left hanging by its conclusion.

I can't say anything negative about Huston, because he is unapologetic in his violence, I just need a break. His books are extremely raw and visceral, and Already Dead is no exception. His protagonists tend to get beaten almost to death, and it can be emotionally draining. I will finish this series, but after I read some lighter stuff, like some Christopher Moore or something.