Much like his series character Hank Thompson, Charlie Huston is a man who sometimes operates under the influence. Where Hank indulges in illicit substances, Huston slips into overly slavish imitations of his crime fiction forebears: Elmore Leonard, Quentin Tarantino, George Pelecanos. The voice of little Charlie Huston can get buried amid all that clamor, but it's a voice that gets clearer and stronger as Huston develops as a novelist. It's a voice well worth hearing. In "Six Bad Things," Hank is hiding out in Mexico after the slaughter of the previous novel, "Caught Stealing." It wouldn't be much of a crime thriller if all the hero did was swim and get toked up, tan and tattooed, so someone comes looking for the loot Hank stole from the Russian mob, and soon he's on the run again. That hot pursuit pretty much continues thru the rest of the novel. Huston's not long on plot, but he is big on nonstop, adrenalized, bullet-riddled thrill rides. It would be a four-star adventure, but I must deduct one star for a seriously ridiculous ending.