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1st out of 93 books
—
125 voters
Caught Stealing (Hank Thompson #1)
It’s three thousand miles from the green fields of glory, where Henry “call me Hank” Thompson once played California baseball, to the Lower East Side of Manhattan, where the tenements are old, the rents are high, and the drunks are dirty. But now Hank is here, working as a bartender and taking care of a cat named Bud who is surely going to get him killed.
It begins when Han...more
It begins when Han...more
Paperback, 288 pages
Published
May 31st 2005
by Ballantine Books
(first published 2004)
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An explosive read that demands a soundtrack. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jrwjiO...
Here we go!
Henry--Hank, to his friends--is just chilling in New York City, working his bartender gig, working his way up at the bar, and slowly pickling his liver. Hank is a genuinely nice guy: he gets along with his neighbors, does the odd job for the super, calls his California parents regularly, lends money to his friends and even--and this is astonishing--doesn't ask for it back.
I've been caught stealing
once...more
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CAUGHT STEALING (Amateur Sleuth) – G+
Charlie Huston – 1st book
Ballantine Books, 2004 – Hardcover
Bartender Hank Thompson agrees to look after his neighbor’s cat, Bud, for a few days and, as a result, is beaten so badly he loses a kidney. He is chased, beaten, tortured, and friends murdered by a pair of Russians, a red-headed Asian, two brothers, and a dirty cop all because of a key found in the bottom of Bud’s carrier.
*** Many of likened this book to a Tarantino movie and I can see why. The prof...more
Charlie Huston – 1st book
Ballantine Books, 2004 – Hardcover
Bartender Hank Thompson agrees to look after his neighbor’s cat, Bud, for a few days and, as a result, is beaten so badly he loses a kidney. He is chased, beaten, tortured, and friends murdered by a pair of Russians, a red-headed Asian, two brothers, and a dirty cop all because of a key found in the bottom of Bud’s carrier.
*** Many of likened this book to a Tarantino movie and I can see why. The prof...more
I read it for 50 pages. The style is a turn off, but the writing & the plot are pretty good. If I didn't have anything else to read, I'd continue, but I have a LOT of other stuff & I just find this style too irritating to continue.
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Mar 31, 2009
Wil Wheaton
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Fans of hardboiled noir.
Shelves:
noir
On the back of this book, there's a blurb about how it's nearly impossible to put it down.
"Oh, really?" I thought, "We'll see about that."
After one day, the score is currently Blurb: 1, Wil: 0.
I'll write a full review when I'm finished with it, but based on about half of Caught Stealing, I can attest that that particular claim is not mere hyperbole.
"Oh, really?" I thought, "We'll see about that."
After one day, the score is currently Blurb: 1, Wil: 0.
I'll write a full review when I'm finished with it, but based on about half of Caught Stealing, I can attest that that particular claim is not mere hyperbole.
A guilty pleasure reading experience: in a good way. Plenty of action and great dialogue make this book difficult to put down. Classic literature? Not a chance. Just one hell of a lot of fun!
They say that the second book in a series is usually not as good as the first one. Well, this does not hold for Charlie Huston’s series about Hank Thompson. I happened to have read Mr. Huston’s “Six Bad Things” before “Caught Stealing” and I find the second novel significantly better. Don’t get me wrong, “Caught Stealing” is still a very good book; it is just not as outstanding as the second book in the series.
We learn the details of how Hank Thompson became a fugitive pursued by various parties...more
We learn the details of how Hank Thompson became a fugitive pursued by various parties...more
Caught Stealing starts at a canter and is soon at a flat out gallop. Huston’s writing is terse, edgy and captivating. I was hooked from the first page to the last. The basic premise is that of the wrong man in the wrong place. Thompson is a resourceful enough character to survive, but only just, meaning that the plot unfolds through a series of chases and violent, visceral near-misses, double and triple crosses, and edge of the seat scenes. And as the story unfolds Thompson slowly transforms fro...more
yep - FIVE stars, people! (but i'm not that finicky, so maybe that won't mean much to some of you half star people...)
i adored this book - and everything about it. this is not a book for the faint of heart - but those people probably wouldn't be buying any charles huston, anyway. there is sudden and overwhelming violence, w/just enough descriptors to be upsetting. upsetting, but riveting. all the more so, when we realize hank is capable of it, as well.
when we meet hank, he's a hard drinking bart...more
i adored this book - and everything about it. this is not a book for the faint of heart - but those people probably wouldn't be buying any charles huston, anyway. there is sudden and overwhelming violence, w/just enough descriptors to be upsetting. upsetting, but riveting. all the more so, when we realize hank is capable of it, as well.
when we meet hank, he's a hard drinking bart...more
I had read Six Bad Things before I read Caught Stealing, which is too bad. This is the first part of a trilogy, and I wish I had read it in order. But, nonetheless, it was a good read. Charlie Huston imbues Henry Thompson with humanity in spite of the brutality he is faced with in escalating amounts throughout this book. Henry's first person narrative and general likeability draws us to him and makes us root for him as his world becomes a violent, crazy mess. He's an innocent at the beginning of...more
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I heart Charlie Huston. Seriously. In a big BIG way.
I picked this book up a while back, having never heard of him. It took me a second to get used to his style of writing, but once I did, I was hooked. Caught Stealing is about a guy who does something stupid in high school and screws up his life. Afterward, he moves across the country and starts over. He's just trying to live his life in peace. He doesn't bother anybody, minds his own business. He gets roped into helping out a friend, and gets a...more
I picked this book up a while back, having never heard of him. It took me a second to get used to his style of writing, but once I did, I was hooked. Caught Stealing is about a guy who does something stupid in high school and screws up his life. Afterward, he moves across the country and starts over. He's just trying to live his life in peace. He doesn't bother anybody, minds his own business. He gets roped into helping out a friend, and gets a...more
4 stars
This is my first Charlie Huston book and I am already sold. This is a straight up noir type thriller that starts fast and ends even quicker. It a story about a young man that thanks to some bad luck and bad timing gets involved with things that will change him forever.
Hank is somewhat likable but easy to identify with as we all know people who seem to have everything going their way until fate reaches up and smacks them in their face and down into humble town. I thoroughly enjoyed the gri...more
This is my first Charlie Huston book and I am already sold. This is a straight up noir type thriller that starts fast and ends even quicker. It a story about a young man that thanks to some bad luck and bad timing gets involved with things that will change him forever.
Hank is somewhat likable but easy to identify with as we all know people who seem to have everything going their way until fate reaches up and smacks them in their face and down into humble town. I thoroughly enjoyed the gri...more
It's an intriguing, violent "wrong man" plot. It reads well and got me into it quick. I liked all the back story bits, and love how he cared as much as he did about his secondary and tertiary characters. While, I thought it was a fun read, it screamed first novel - occasionally stiff and creaky. The blame for where this book fails falls firmly on the shoulders of his editor (although, who knows what it looked like before the editor). The book is entrenched in NYC and attempts to embrace the cult...more
Huston, Charlie. CAUGHT STEALING. (2004). ****. This was Huston’s dazzling debut into the world of crime fiction. It doesn’t get any darker than this. He manages to keep up the fast pace throughout the book, though he does occassionally have to kill an innocent bystander or two to keep our attention. It is the story of a nice young man from California, Henry (Hank) Thompson. Hank grew up loving baseball, and excelled at it on every team he was on – from t-Ball onwards. In his senior year at high...more
From ISawLightningFall.com
THREE-AND-A-HALF STARS
Ever find yourself asking where JUST ENOUGH turns into WAY TOO MUCH? I know I wonder where the line falls between an extra hour's sleep on Saturday and pure laziness, between adding an interesting side project and falling into scattered slothfulness. Usually, this behavioral platting occurs when I'm trying to rationalize something away, to say that, hey, no one can really tell when an action moves from mildly indulgent to flat-out grotesque. (Logic...more
THREE-AND-A-HALF STARS
Ever find yourself asking where JUST ENOUGH turns into WAY TOO MUCH? I know I wonder where the line falls between an extra hour's sleep on Saturday and pure laziness, between adding an interesting side project and falling into scattered slothfulness. Usually, this behavioral platting occurs when I'm trying to rationalize something away, to say that, hey, no one can really tell when an action moves from mildly indulgent to flat-out grotesque. (Logic...more
This is my fourth Charlie Huston book and I have to say that he can really write. His books are heavy on the violence and certainly aren't for everybody; in fact if someone had described them to me before I read one I would have said that they weren't for me either. But I started another of his books, Already Dead, without knowing much about it and once I did I was hooked until the end.
That being said, I think that Caught Stealing reads like what it is: Charlie Huston's debut novel. All the basi...more
That being said, I think that Caught Stealing reads like what it is: Charlie Huston's debut novel. All the basi...more
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Not a bad sentence, nor a wrong word. This is easily one of the best books I've read this year.
I suppose one of the central messages of this book is that no good deed goes unpunished. Other messages, in no particular order, are:
- Alcoholic bartenders on a downward spiral can also be good guys.
- Good guys in bad situations often must do bad things.
- Some people care deeply about big bags of cash.
- Being cruel to cats brings on some wicked bad karma.
- Cold beer is often desirable, even if you have...more
I suppose one of the central messages of this book is that no good deed goes unpunished. Other messages, in no particular order, are:
- Alcoholic bartenders on a downward spiral can also be good guys.
- Good guys in bad situations often must do bad things.
- Some people care deeply about big bags of cash.
- Being cruel to cats brings on some wicked bad karma.
- Cold beer is often desirable, even if you have...more
Caught Stealing is like Cormac McCarthy channelling his inner Quentin Tarantino.
I can see why a lot of people didn't like the writing style in this book especially when dialogue looks like:
- I hate this.
- Really?
- Really.
- Been to the park?
- Nope.
- Really?
- Really.
No quotation marks, no dialogue tags (e.g. he/she said), long stretches where you can lose track of who is saying what, ergo my Cormac McCarthy reference. And yes, those dashes are what Huston uses to mark his dialogue. It tak...more
I can see why a lot of people didn't like the writing style in this book especially when dialogue looks like:
- I hate this.
- Really?
- Really.
- Been to the park?
- Nope.
- Really?
- Really.
No quotation marks, no dialogue tags (e.g. he/she said), long stretches where you can lose track of who is saying what, ergo my Cormac McCarthy reference. And yes, those dashes are what Huston uses to mark his dialogue. It tak...more
In order to understand this story you need a little background on the protagonist. At one time Hank Thompson had been a gifted young athlete, a baseball player with major league scouts at all of his games. It looked like he would be able to live his dream, but then a career ending injury made that dream impossible. Later on Hank is driving fast, late at night, when a calf wanders into the road. He swerves to avoid it, but a tire blows, the car flips end over end and his best friend dies in the c...more
This is a book written by an author who set out to write something "edgy" and "hip", vowing to take noir fiction to the "next level". Not even close. The book is a nihilistic hodgepodge of drug taking, drunkenness and gratuitous violence. "A tale told by an idiot signifying nothing" is an apt description. One by one the author beats and/or kills just about every character in the book. Wow, great accomplishment, that's so rad, man.
I don't really have a problem with the violence in the book. I rea...more
I don't really have a problem with the violence in the book. I rea...more
What can I say about this book? I flippin loved it! Pulp fiction crime noir. Fast paced. A simple plot – man finds a key that leads to a great deal of money, hard-core criminals on opposing teams want their money back. But that is where the simplicity ends. Huston writes in first person through Hank Thompson, a wonderful character who you can’t help but like even when he has to do things that he doesn’t want to do just so he can survive another hour. There is a lot of violence, killing, and bloo...more
Be warned: this is an extremely violent book. Possibly the most gratuitously violent book I've read in recent memory. It seemed like on nearly every page, someone was getting beaten to a bloody pulp, shot, tortured, beaten, and shot. There's a lot of blood and a lot of violence. I couldn't read the scene that involves cruelty to the cat, because it made me physically ill.
This is the first book in a trilogy that I happened to read out of order. I recently finished the second book, "Six Bad Things...more
This is the first book in a trilogy that I happened to read out of order. I recently finished the second book, "Six Bad Things...more
So, you're living your life day to day, you have some past demons as all people do, but you're doing okay. One day, a neighbor asks you to do him a favor and you agree. Before you know it, your life is no longer your own and you're living it minute to minute--if you're lucky! This book is SO..., SO..., what's better than AMAZING? Page after page, you can't get your breath. Some stories are quite the ride, but this one? Whoa! Up and down, then up and down, and then up and down and around all over...more
Being a fan of the Joe Pitt series, I purchased this book as a gift for a friend who likes to read crime novels. But he returned the book to me after reading only a few pages, arguing he didn't like the slightly disgusting introduction (is such a thing really necessary to write a good crime story?!) and did not want to find out what the rest of the book would bring.
I was immediately tempted to find out for myself wether the book was really that bad. So I started reading and after the first pages...more
I was immediately tempted to find out for myself wether the book was really that bad. So I started reading and after the first pages...more
Aug 21, 2012
Ghostsoup1313
added it
Recommends it for:
no one
Recommended to Ghostsoup1313 by:
Found the name mentioned in another book.
I found this book to be boring, repetitive and clichéd. Neither the plot nor characters were original.
First, the premise is overused. The protagonist, a bartender, is beaten one night for unknown reasons by two guys who are obviously Russian Mob. Despite the fact that we later learn they do know who he is and do want something from him they never initially ask him any questions. Why?
The first half of the book is the bartender being beaten. 100 pages of the main character being beaten, trying to...more
First, the premise is overused. The protagonist, a bartender, is beaten one night for unknown reasons by two guys who are obviously Russian Mob. Despite the fact that we later learn they do know who he is and do want something from him they never initially ask him any questions. Why?
The first half of the book is the bartender being beaten. 100 pages of the main character being beaten, trying to...more
I just read the first 2 in his Hank Thompson Trilogy. Caught Stealing & 6 Bad Things. They are in a crime noir style. The protagonist Hank (Henry to his parents) is a hapless funloving kind of guy.
You meet Hank in Caught Stealing. He's ended up tending bar in new york after an accident in highschool that ruined his chances at a professional baseball career. He's also haunted by another incident in HS that may have prompted his move and kept him in the holding pattern he's been in for the pa...more
You meet Hank in Caught Stealing. He's ended up tending bar in new york after an accident in highschool that ruined his chances at a professional baseball career. He's also haunted by another incident in HS that may have prompted his move and kept him in the holding pattern he's been in for the pa...more
This is a great crime novel. The protagonist is a genuinely decent guy (a nice change from the anti-heroes I usually read in crime) who gets caught up in some truly disturbing circumstances. This makes it very easy to empathise with Hank as well as rooting for his revenge. Even though the villains are pretty twisted and evil, they are none-the-less very entertaining and each one has a very distinctive appearance and voice. The dialogue is excellent throughout and you can tell who is speaking eve...more
I had recently reviewed another Charlie Huston novel here (Sleepless). Sleepless was a futuristic dystopian novel which you all know I have a weakness for. I enjoyed the book so much that I decided to pick up something else by Charlie Huston.
Caught Stealing is not a science fiction book. It is probably best described as a crime novel. The book is incredibly action packed. It centers on a thirty-ish man with some major disappointments in his past. He is working as a bartender in NYC, has a drinki...more
Caught Stealing is not a science fiction book. It is probably best described as a crime novel. The book is incredibly action packed. It centers on a thirty-ish man with some major disappointments in his past. He is working as a bartender in NYC, has a drinki...more
Jan 23, 2010
adventurat
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
anyone who loves a good yarn well told
This book starts off at a dead run and keeps going from there, pretty much, but it doesn't sacrifice characterization or plot for action; it's all of a piece and it pulls you along inexorably. Things get steadily worse for Hank Thompson - the trouble he's in gets stickier and the options for getting out narrower and narrower - until although you're certain that he'll do it, you're dumbfounded as to how he can possibly manage it.
Hank has had some bad breaks in his life, but they are nothing to t...more
Hank has had some bad breaks in his life, but they are nothing to t...more
This was a strange one. If I were to take a hard look at the book, I'd say it was only mediocre *but* I couldn't put it down. There is something I can't define or explain that kept me going.
Maybe it was that the main character, Hank, was such a sad sack I had to see what happened. Maybe it was that the characters were just interesting that I didn't want to give up on them.
There's a lot of "oh now they didn't" events in the book as the battle between Hank and those out to get him whipsaws all ove...more
Maybe it was that the main character, Hank, was such a sad sack I had to see what happened. Maybe it was that the characters were just interesting that I didn't want to give up on them.
There's a lot of "oh now they didn't" events in the book as the battle between Hank and those out to get him whipsaws all ove...more
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Charlie Huston is an American author of Noircrime fiction. However, according to a recent interview with Paradigm, he prefers to be classified as a writer of Pulp, due to how he writes.
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