Every Last Drop (Joe Pitt, #4) by Charlie Huston

Jun 14, 2012 carol. rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: fans of Abercrombie, dark UF fans

Shelves: urban-fantasy, vampires, male-lead

Every starts with Joe's exile in the Bronx, and him dropping in on a post-baseball game exodus, parsing the crowd for Vampyres. He scents one and follows the trail, tracing it to a pack who has just attacked a woman. It's one of the neatest, heart-breaking series expositions I've read; it orients the reader to Joe, the Vampyre life and his moral struggle in an unusual way. Shortly after, he is meeting Esperanza, a tough Puerto Rican and the closest thing they have to a Vampyre boss up there. Or Every starts with Joe's exile in the Bronx, and him dropping in on a post-baseball game exodus, parsing the crowd for Vampyres. He scents one and follows the trail, tracing it to a pack who has just attacked a woman. It's one of the neatest, heart-breaking series expositions I've read; it orients the reader to Joe, the Vampyre life and his moral struggle in an unusual way. Shortly after, he is meeting Esperanza, a tough Puerto Rican and the closest thing they have to a Vampyre boss up there. Or so he thinks, until he runs into a pack again and meets their sadistic maker. What follows was one of those hard scenes that Huston does so well. Creepy, fraught with violence and suspense, and when it finally goes down, it is both better and worse than expected. Huston is very skilled at making me uncomfortable without needing to pile on a load of details; a few carefully chosen words and I cringe.

Manipulations pull him back into the city, as Predo sends him to infiltrate the newest clan, Clan Cure, led by eccentric genius Amanda, now planning to save Vampyres from the virus. From there, he hits up a flophouse, running into Philip, his favorite snitch and crutch. Ah, Phil, a never-ending source of wry addict humor. "Man, this'll teach me to focus exclusively on the ups. I mean, fuck, I don't got a single painkiller in here." The last step in playing the angles is investigating the Coalition's mysterious blood supply that serves as uneasy lynchpin in the peace between clans. "I didn't pass math. Shit, I didn't pass anything. But I can figure that number in my head. Know what that number equals? Equals: Where the fuck to they get it all?

Joe is scrambling in this book, a desperate and subtle manipulation of playing everyone who wants to kill him off each other. He has a cockroach quality, in that almost nothing seems to kill him despite varied and numerous threats. Though he is dispassionate on the surface, he will take revenge. Really, that's another one of the brillances of Huston's writing; how he can imbue a seemingly detached character with emotional complexity. Though he later justifies his actions in terms of Evie, it's quite clear Joe has another, almost nihilistic ethical sense operating.

Huston's really hitting his writing stride with this one. I enjoyed the writing as much as the plotting, perhaps even more. I particularly relish when his 'gangsters' get a chance to share their stunning and sophisticated philosophies: "It is strange. That causing fear in others can help produce freedom. But it is also true. It clears a path before one. Creates space, a perimeter within which one can operate with abandon. I am not saying that it is true freedom. But it is a start."

A running metaphor about gravity and orbital bodies lends a sense of inevitability to the arc of Joe's actions. Evie is the black hole to his trajectory, unavoidable. "The gravity pulling from below Fourteenth doesn't go away... How you ignore a thing like that is, you move. Create momentum. Build velocity to carry your mass outside the influence of the body pulling at yours."

Ah, the characterizations. "The man breeds lies. He spawns them asexually, with no need for any assistance. He exhales and lies fill the air... he dreams in lies."

And the setting: "The bad things about a place like the Whitehouse, listed alphabetically, start somewhere around armed robbery, run past cockroaches and dirty needles, hit their stride with mass murder, start to tail off at rape, and end with a classic: zoophilia."

Really, I'm impressed at how much Huston accomplishes with his staccato style. Not always a comfortable read, but a decently plotted, characterized one with a surprising sophistication.

Book five: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Cross posted at http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2013/0... ...more

flag 27 likes · Like · see review

Oct 03, 2017 J.K. Grice rated it really liked it

Shelves: horror

The Joe Pitt vampire saga continues to deliver! EVERY LAST DROP is another winner from Huston.

flag 24 likes · Like · see review

Dec 10, 2018 Charles rated it it was ok

This is the fourth of five books in the Joe Pitt series following Half the Blood of Brooklyn (my review). The series is a mashup of: dark, gritty, and ultra-violent noir/hardboiled detective/urban fantasy. This story continues to advance the long-term story arc, but does not bring the story to its close. Like its predecessor, I found it to be another filler. The ending is weak cliffhanger forcing a series reader to find closure with buying or borrowing My Dead Body (Joe Pitt #5) .

Note this ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Sep 19, 2011 Stephanie rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction, mystery, noir, paranormal, horror

Joe Pitt is really hitting the bottom this time. Exiled from Manhattan, Pitt finds himself living like a homeless person, trying to stay alive in the Bronx. And there is some real evil going on over there, some really sick stuff.

flag 3 likes · Like · see review

Apr 09, 2012 Gabriel rated it really liked it

Ok, so this one was full of awkward sentences and phrasing. There were a few too many times when sections (just a couple of short paragraphs long) seemed disjointed and not quite understandable.

BUT ...

Joe Pitt (ne Cool, I swear) stuck off the island for a year of rogue vampiring. Then, he's brought back for reasons begun in book #3 (yeah, this is a series you NEED to read in the correct order). And this time, he doesn't get played ... he plays the others.

These books are gritty (as in, you need t ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jun 26, 2011 Contrarius rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: urban-fantasy

I believe that many readers don't like this book as much as the rest of the Joe Pitt series, but I am very impressed by it. However, one must have read the three preceding books in order to get full value from this one.

Every Last Drop is the book where we really start to see more of Joe's internal life. Throughout the series Joe is somewhat of an enigma. We see only flashes of what really motivates him, and many times he hardly appears to be human. But the facade begins to crack a bit more in th ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jul 01, 2012 Maggie K rated it really liked it

Shelves: urban-fantasy

I had to sit here for a while thinking what it was about these books I like so much....Joe's too jaded to like too much. He seems to get too focused on things, then all of a sudden you realize he has been dealing with the big picture all along. He doesnt share his thoughts but you realize he has been sitting there planning things once he gets in motion. How everything always ends up being about the girl he loves.

I'm talking a lot about Joe aren't I? Even though I said I didn't like him. Characte ...more

flag 2 likes · Like · see review

Jan 19, 2009 Cameron rated it really liked it

Shelves: urban-fantasy

From Society to Rogue to Society to really really Rogue to playing everyone's damn field, Joe just can't seem to find a niche and hang tight, lay low, stay copacetic. It doesn't help that his mannerisms err on the side of painfully sarcastic and violently anticipatory. No wonder he gets his ass kicked to the wilds, no, not Brooklyn again, worse: to stay out of the sights of the Clans that individually each want his head on any damned platter available, Joe goes to the Bronx, a sort of homecoming ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Apr 26, 2012 Leslee rated it it was ok

Shelves: vampires

2.5 stars. It's hard to believe how such a promising series devolved so quickly. In this addition to the Joe Pitt series, our titular character falls deeper in the middle of a convoluted mess of a turf war. Sela and Amanda are back, with Amanda being some sort of young genius with biomolecular and virus research. We also find out the Coalition's secret source for their vast quantities of blood.

Not going to go into much detail for this one because I'm saving it all for the grand finale on my rev ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Feb 12, 2010 Ian Mathers rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2010

In which our protagonist tears down his entire world just to get back to/with the only person in the world he loves. Spoiler: It doesn't work.

This was the book, I guess, where Huston's noir roots really hit me - you like Joe, and you root for him, but he's not always (or even often) a good person. He doesn't always make choices that you would, or ones that are morally acceptable. Or sane. But, I mean, he's been telling you since the first book that not only does he live in the dark and drink blo ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jul 08, 2009 Neil rated it really liked it

I had the pleasure of moderating a panel with Huston, Charlaine Harris, and Marjorie Liu last week at the ALA convention. Huston was a funny speaker. It was easy to see where the humor and likability of a character, even one as nasty as Joe Pitt, comes from. I got the feeling that most of Huston's work in the future will be along the lines of straight noir, not stuff with a fantastic element, but we'll have to see.

In this installment, Pitt is at loose ends up in Queens, trying to get back to Evi ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jul 18, 2011 Ian Oliver Camiwet rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: urban-or-dark-fantasy

Book 4 in the Joe Pit series became better than its previous ones. Huston continues the fast paced, and violent story of the vampyre Joe Pit, and he just raised the stakes.

After returning from exile, Joe decides to come back from the Bronx a year later after the events in the previous books. And a lot has changed; Amanda Horde, the girl he rescued, has established a clan, but problems arise in maintaining it. She sent Joe into a mission, in which he discovers a great secret, that can bring the o ...more

flag 1 like · Like · see review

Jul 12, 2018 Katja rated it it was ok

starting to get tired of the series...

flag Like · see review

Jun 12, 2017 Petra Spies rated it really liked it

I don't want the series to end.

flag Like · see review

May 14, 2018 Ben rated it really liked it

Excellent continuation and build up to critical mass. I can't wait to see how the pieces fall in the next book.

flag Like · see review

Nov 29, 2017 Katherine rated it it was amazing

Wowzer...great series if you're in the mood for mean Vampyre..am really enjoying this series

flag Like · see review

Mar 18, 2017 Josh Peek rated it it was amazing

Each one of these books improves upon the last.

flag Like · see review

Jul 12, 2014 Duncan Mandel rated it really liked it

Shelves: my-digital-books

“[Charlie Huston’s] action scenes are unparalleled in crime fiction and his dialogue is so hip and dead-on that Elmore Leonard should be getting nervous.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review), on Half the Blood of Brooklyn

It’s like this: a series of bullet-riddled bad breaks has seen rogue Vampyre and terminal tough guy Joe Pitt go from PI for hire to Clan-connected enforcer to dead man walking in a New York minute. And after burning all his bridges, the only one left to cross leads to the Bronx,

“[Charlie Huston’s] action scenes are unparalleled in crime fiction and his dialogue is so hip and dead-on that Elmore Leonard should be getting nervous.”
–Publishers Weekly (starred review), on Half the Blood of Brooklyn

It’s like this: a series of bullet-riddled bad breaks has seen rogue Vampyre and terminal tough guy Joe Pitt go from PI for hire to Clan-connected enforcer to dead man walking in a New York minute. And after burning all his bridges, the only one left to cross leads to the Bronx, where Joe’s brass knuckles and straight razor can’t keep him from running afoul of a sadistic old bloodsucker with a bad bark and a worse bite. Even if every Clan in Manhattan is hollering for Joe’s head on a stick, it’s got to be better than trying to survive in the outer-borough wilderness.

So it’s a no-brainer when Clan boss Dexter Predo comes looking to make a deal. All Joe has to do to win back breathing privileges on his old turf is infiltrate an upstart Clan whose plan to cure the Vyrus could expose the secret Vampyre world to mortal eyes and set off a panic-driven massacre. Not cool. But Joe’s all over it. To save the Undead future, he just has to wade neck-deep through all the archenemies, former friends, and assorted heavy hitters he’s crossed in the past. No sweat? Maybe not, but definitely more blood than he’s ever seen or hungered for. And maybe even some tears–over the horror and heartbreaking truth about the evil men do no matter who or what they are.

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

**

From Publishers Weekly

In this fascinatingly flawed fourth episode in the bloody horror-noir chronicles of New York vampire PI Joe Pitt (after 2007's Half the Blood Of Brooklyn), relations between the city's vampire clans are unraveling. The Cure is researching antidotes to the ravenous vampire-creating Vyrus, while the better-nourished Coalition seeks the Cure's downfall and the Society plays both sides. Dodging death threats and brokering shaky deals, Pitt shuttles among all three until he learns the Coalition's secret, a revelation so volatile that it may lead to all-out war. Huston supplies terse dialogue and convincing gore in expertly pitched prose, but the beautifully cinematic nastiness doesn't quite mask a key difficulty: Pitt's enemies set their hate aside too easily at his appearance, and their rational behavior is at odds with the emotional intensity (and sheer implausibility) of the climax. Newcomers may find the relationships difficult to parse, but those familiar with the series should be enthralled. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

In his fourth outing, rakish New York vampire Joe Pitt leaves the series’ “casebooks” nomenclature in the dust. This toothsome tale is no variation on the P.I. genre; instead, Huston imaginatively, logically explores the limits of the world he’s created for Pitt to haunt. If a virus that forced its hosts to seek blood for sustenance gave rise to competing secret clans that kept members fed in exchange for allegiance, wouldn’t a rising population of infected require development of a secure supply chain lest the drained bodies of victims started piling up on the Manhattan streets? Wouldn’t a threat to that supply destabilize the entire clan structure? And how would the established clans react to an upstart group promising to find a cure—thus stripping the old guard of its power? The answers to these questions might pierce even Pitt’s leather-tough heart as he takes readers on another darkly entertaining ride. Meanwhile, his nights of acting as unofficial clan go-between might be drawing to a close as the saber-rattling and brinksmanship escalates toward an all-out vampire war. We can hardly wait. --Frank Sennett

...more

flag Like · see review

Oct 05, 2008 FicusFan rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, modern-day, mystery, new-york-city, noir, vampires, read-10-08, read-2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Let me start by saying, I love this series. I also have to say this book is a bit of a disappointment. I feel that the book is a bit repetitive, echoing the first book in the series.

In this book Joe has cut all his ties to the various vampire clans who were supporting/employing/tolerating him in Manhattan. His behavior has exiled him to the Bronx, and he can't return to Manhattan on pain of death. He of course yearns to return, because that is where his home is, and because, his girlfriend, Evie Let me start by saying, I love this series. I also have to say this book is a bit of a disappointment. I feel that the book is a bit repetitive, echoing the first book in the series.

In this book Joe has cut all his ties to the various vampire clans who were supporting/employing/tolerating him in Manhattan. His behavior has exiled him to the Bronx, and he can't return to Manhattan on pain of death. He of course yearns to return, because that is where his home is, and because, his girlfriend, Evie is there.

Joe has apparently been exiled for a couple of years when the book opens. He ends up being grabbed up by a gang of teeny vamps who are part of a sanctioned training program by the powers that be in Manhattan. Seems the big honcho in the Coalition, wants Joe to go on a super secret mission (sound familiar). The whole process to get Joe from the Bronx back to Manhattan, was awkward, and unsatisfying the read.

Joe is given money and a promise of return to Manhattan if he spies on a new group that has formed around Amanda Horde, the rich, high profile young woman whom Joe rescued when she was still a child. Now she is old enough to act for herself, and being a bio-expert (ha, ha) like her parents, she is looking into the Vyrus with an eye to a cure. Not only is she doing that but she has started a new clan, and will take in any vampire who wants to join. She is upsetting the balance of power, and the territoriality the other clans live by, yet she is too powerful, and public for them to attack. They also worry she may decide to go public and present them as 'diseased' and in need of a cure.

Joe of course likes Amanda and if there was one place he belonged, it was with her. But in true Joe form, he can't accept anything offered, he has to go it alone, and fight against any type of structure. He has refused her offer of sanctuary in the past. Its getting tiresome.

So in this book he ends up where he should have been all along, but now he is there unwillingly, and as a spy. He of course tells Amanda that he is there to spy, and then wanders off.

He is grabbed next by the Society people, that he almost killed the last time he was there. They want to execute him, but for cash will give him a pass. Joe needs to get the cash from Amanda, and she needs blood to feed her clan.

Her price to bail Joe out, is for him to go to Queens where the Coalition's unlimited blood supply comes from. Amanda wants to find out where the blood is coming from, for a chance to out-bid the Coalition with the supplier.

Of course if you have been paying attention to the series and how the vamps work, you know where it comes from. So while everyone in the book is horrified and disgusted, I saw it coming. I also don't see the big deal the vamps have about it. Its not like they treat non-vamps with respect, or care about using them, or hurting them. All they care about is getting their blood, and not getting caught and publicized. Joe brings to light a dirty secret, and Manhattan gears up for a vampire-clan war.

So it seems to me that Joe is just doing the same things, for the same people. Very little changes, and its predictable what is going to happen. Each new scene is just another opportunity for Joe to mouth off and act tough. Its getting a bit tiresome. Joe's attitude is also getting annoying. He can't accept help from anyone. He can't work with anyone, and he can't get along with anyone.

In this book he gets to spend some time with Evie and that relationship takes a predictable path.

I will keep reading the series, and hope that Huston comes up with something new, but I am worried that perhaps he has reached the end of his imagination. ...more

flag Like · see review

Jul 07, 2011 Kathy Davie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, urban

Fourth in the Joe Pitt urban fantasy series set in a contemporary New York City about a lone vampire refusing to bow down to any one group of vampires. Joe doesn't care about anyone else's agenda. He simply wants to be his own man, um, vampire. But rogues aren't tolerated and every clan, society, enclave wants a piece of Joe for their own ends.

The Story
After burning all his bridges in Half the Blood of Brooklyn, Joe is in miserable exile in the Bronx. Even more of a loner—and alone—than ever. J ...more

flag Like · see review

Oct 08, 2008 Drew rated it really liked it

To start with, let's establish something: this is the fourth book in a series. The series is about Joe Pitt, who is a vampire. At the beginning of the series, three books ago, he lived in Manhattan, and existed as a rogue, surviving by doing jobs for Manhattan's warring vampire clans, and always making sure that all of them felt indebted enough to him to keep him alive. A lot has changed since then, but the predominant feel--that of a gritty PI novel in an NYC setting, only with vampires--has no To start with, let's establish something: this is the fourth book in a series. The series is about Joe Pitt, who is a vampire. At the beginning of the series, three books ago, he lived in Manhattan, and existed as a rogue, surviving by doing jobs for Manhattan's warring vampire clans, and always making sure that all of them felt indebted enough to him to keep him alive. A lot has changed since then, but the predominant feel--that of a gritty PI novel in an NYC setting, only with vampires--has not. Beyond that, though, I don't want to discuss plot specifics, since I don't want to ruin any details for anyone who hasn't read any of the books in the series yet.

While I enjoyed this book as much as I have the first three of the Joe Pitt novels, I felt that this one was weaker than those three if only because it didn't hold up on its own as well as they did. "Already Dead" and "No Dominion", the first two, were easily read as standalone stories, and featured central conflicts that were resolved in an end-of-book climax that was satisfying to the reader. The same is true of the third in the series, "Half The Blood Of Brooklyn", though that one seemed a bit short, and felt a bit underdeveloped in the middle sections. "Every Last Drop" is back to the more fully developed feel of "Already Dead" and "No Dominion", but the climactic scene of the main plot thread is not the conclusion of the book, and isn't dramatic enough to be anyway. The conclusion turns out to be an advancement of a subplot from "Half the Blood Of Brooklyn" that's barely been touched on, except during main character first-person reverie, for most of the book. In the other books in the series, there are definitely moments that require the reader to have read the earlier books in chronological order, but that said, there is also a plot that could be viscerally satisfying to anyone who picked up the book with no prior knowledge of the series. This is definitely not true of "Every Last Drop". Both the main plot of the book and the subplot that ends up taking over the main plot at the climactic moment are integrally tied up in events of previous novels in the series. I felt when I was reading it like I wasn't reading something that completely justified its existence as an independent novel in the series. Perhaps the problem is that the books in the series have all been short, between 200 and 250 pages, and "Every Last Drop" is 252 pages long. Maybe the publishers wouldn't allow Charlie Huston to put all of the plot developments, as well as actual conclusions to these plots, into one book. Perhaps it's been split in two due to length. If that's the case, the other half better be along as soon as possible, because the ending of this book resolved nothing, and left me with even more unanswered questions than did the ending of "Half The Blood Of Brooklyn". I certainly did enjoy every minute of it as I was reading it, but still. I wish I got more of a definite ending from it. ...more

flag Like · see review

Jun 29, 2010 pinknantucket rated it liked it

Shelves: ms-readathon-2010

One of my friends insisted I read some crime novels this Readathon, which I am normally very happy to do only at present I find the walls of gold-lettered murder-fests on the bookshelves a bit overwhelming. I've started a few and gone off them quite quickly. I need some suggestions, so if you have any fave crime authors please let me know.

So I cheated and read "The Penge Bungalow Murders" and also this one, which is kind of a hardboiled-detective-meets-vampire story. It's the first book of Husto ...more

flag Like · see review

Sep 15, 2009 Thomas rated it liked it

Shelves: dark, horror, 2011

This is what I thought was the last book in the Joe Pitt/Vampyre series, and it’s a book that I’ve had hanging around the house for several months. I mean, I like Charlie Huston’s stories, and when it comes to dialog, I honestly can’t think of anyone who writes it sharper and more effectively than he does, but the gritty, dark-noir novels he get tend to get repetitious. At this point, I was just reading this book to finish out the series and see how certain things that happened at the end of the ...more

flag Like · see review

Aug 23, 2013 Meran rated it it was amazing

Shelves: fantasy, fiction, horror, novels, mystery, noir, vampires

After burning all his bridges at the end of Book #3 (this being #4), Joe Pitt has nowhere to go, no friends, even his girlfriend won't talk to him.

BTW, I love all the maps that come with these novels! They help me get around the city and the book. I've never been to NYC. The maps lend me a Citizen For a Day card. :D They also help with landmarks; many I've heard of, but not understood well. AND with the placement of the boroughs, Brooklyn, the Bronx, Queens, New Jersey.

Joe is waxing philosophic ...more

flag Like · see review

Jun 24, 2011 Contrarius rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: urban-fantasy

I believe that many readers don't like this book as much as the rest of the Joe Pitt series, but I am very impressed by it. However, one must have read the three preceding books in order to get full value from this one.

Every Last Drop is the book where we really start to see more of Joe's internal life. Throughout the series Joe is somewhat of an enigma. We see only flashes of what really motivates him, and many times he hardly appears to be human. But the facade begins to crack a bit more in t ...more

flag Like · see review

Oct 06, 2008 Darrell rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: clint, gus, lauren, lexi

Charlie Huston books are becoming automatic purchases for me - a rarity for a miserly fellow (in graphic novels - the equivalents are Trondheim's Dungeon, Azzarello's 100 Bullets and Carla Speed McNeil's Finder series)

Joe Pitt is a rogue vampire in the Bronx, no fixed address, no reliable source of blood and
for the first time since No Dominion's brief Harlem sojourn - a melanin deficient minority for an extended period of time

(the African Americans and Latino Americans vampires of the Bronx an ...more

flag Like · see review

Nov 27, 2010 Ladiibbug rated it really liked it

Recommends it for: UF Fans - Violent Content Alert

#4 Joe Pitt, Vampire PI - UF

4.5 stars

Exciting, exceptionally well written, violent & gritty UF. Set in New York City, where various vampire clans co-exist, not always peacefully. Each clan has its own territory, its own agendas, goals, and old grudges against each other. Joe Pitt, vampire PI, finds it impossible and more dangerous than ever to maintain his independence.

No spoilers - this series is highly entertaining and different from any other UF I've read. Very gritty and violent, but un ...more

flag Like · see review

Aug 25, 2016 Max rated it really liked it

If you've got this far in the series you've gotta love Joe's grizzly idiotic anti-hero persona - it's not a novel you can just pick up on its own, being so firmly entrenched in the 5-book storyline. At the beginning it wasn't clear where the story was going - hell, even at this point I'm not sure, but the first novel introduced the players with quite a standalone story.
Joe, trying hard to stay off the radar in his self-imposed exile back in his old home in the Bronx. Manhatten seemed like hard w ...more

flag Like · see review

Apr 17, 2008 Jamie Collins rated it liked it

Shelves: fantasy-urban, vampires, noir-crime

3.5 stars. This is a pretty good book, but this series is starting to become a little repetitive. How many more times can Joe get snatched, interrogated and threatened? A few new bad guys get introduced, but mostly Joe makes the rounds again of all the old familiar ones. Certainly don't start with this book - I don't think this it would make a bit of sense to a new reader.

This entry is darker (!) and has less humor than the earlier books. The ending is fairly satisfying, but there is obviously a ...more

flag Like · see review

Jun 27, 2009 Rashida rated it liked it

This is the fourth book in the series. I love the concept of the world that Huston has created- or rather how he realistically renders the world that we know with unexpected secrets. The characters are fantastic, the heros and the villains. I ranked this a little lower than the previous three because of some James Bond type concerns. On one hand, our hero's luck is bit too much like James Bond in the way that his enemies tend to talk and talk and give him so many chances at escape. It would feel ...more

flag Like · see review