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Already Dead (A Joe Pitt Novel) Paperback – Unabridged, December 27, 2005
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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.
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDel Rey
- Publication dateDecember 27, 2005
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.65 x 8.19 inches
- ISBN-10034547824X
- ISBN-13978-0345478245
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From Bookmarks Magazine
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.
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Review
“Rocks and rolls from the first page. This is one mean, cold, slit-eyed mother of a book, and Charlie Huston is the real deal.”
–Peter Straub, on Six Bad Things
“[A] wrong-man plot worthy of Hitchcock.”
–Entertainment Weekly (Editor’s Choice), on Caught Stealing
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
So this pack is half-smart. They’ve splashed themselves with Chanel No. 5, Old Spice, whatever. Most folks just think they have a heavy hand at the personal scent counter. I close my eyes and inhale deeper, because it could just be a group of bridge and tunnelers in from Jersey or Long Island. But it’s not. I take that second breath and sure enough, there it is underneath: the sweet, subtle tang of something not quite dead. Something freshly rotting. I’m betting they’re the ones I’m looking for. And why wouldn’t they be? It’s not like these things are thick on the ground. Not yet. I walk a little farther down Avenue A and stop at the sidewalk window of Nino’s, the pizza joint on the corner of St. Marks.
I rap on the counter with the ring on my middle finger and one of the Neapolitans comes over.
—Yeah?
—What’s fresh?
He looks blank.
—The pizza, what’s just out of the oven?
—Tomato and garlic.
—No way, no fucking garlic. How ’bout the broccoli, it been out all day?
He shrugs.
—Fine, give me the broccoli. Not too hot, I don’t want to burn the roof of my mouth.
He cuts a slice and slides it into the oven to warm up. I could eat the tomato and garlic if I wanted to. It’s not like the garlic would hurt me or anything. I just don’t like the shit.
While I wait I lean on the counter and watch the customers inside the joint. The usual crowd for a Friday night: couple drunk NYU kids, couple drunk greasers, a drunk squatter, two drunk yuppies on an East Village adventure, a couple drunk hip-hoppers, and the ones I’m looking for. There are three of them standing around the far corner table: an old-school goth chick, and two rail-thin guys, with impossibly high cheekbones, that have fashion junkie written all over them. The kind of guys who live in a squat but make the fashion-week scene by virtue of the skag they bring to the parties. Just my favorite brand of shitdogs all in all.
—Broccoli.
The Neapolitan is back with my slice. I hand him three bucks. The goth and the fashion junkies watch the two NYU kids stumble out the door. They push their slices around for another minute, then follow. I sprinkle red pepper flakes on my slice and take a big bite, and sure enough it’s too hot and I burn the roof of my mouth. The pizza jockey comes back and tosses my fifty cents change on the counter. I swallow, the molten cheese scorching my throat.
—I told you not too hot.
He shrugs. All the guy has to do all day is throw slices in the oven and take them out when they’re ready. Ask for one not too hot and you might as well be requesting coq au vin. I grab my change, toss the slice back on the counter and take off after the junkies and the goth chick. Fucking thing had garlic in the sauce anyway.
The NYU kids have crossed the street to cut through Tompkins Square before the cops shut it down at midnight. The trio lags behind about eight yards back, walking past the old water fountain with Faith, Hope, Temperance, Charity carved in the stone above it. The kids reach the opposite side of the park and keep heading east on Ninth Street, deeper into Alphabet City. Great.
This block of 9th between Avenues B and C is barren, as in empty of everyone except the NYU kids, their trailers and me.
The junkies and the goth pick up the pace. I stroll. They’re not going anywhere without my seeing it. What they want to do takes a bit of privacy. Better for me if they get settled someplace where they feel safe, before I move in.
They’re right on the kids now. They move into a dark patch under a busted streetlamp and spread out, one on either side of the kids and one behind. There’s a scuffle, movement and noise, and they all disappear. Fuck.
I jog up the street and take a look. On my left is an abandoned building. It used to be a Puerto Rican community center and performance space, before that it was a P.S. Now it’s just condemned.
I follow the scent up the steps and across the small courtyard to the graffiti-covered doors. They’ve been chained shut for a few years, but tonight the chain is hanging loose below the hacksawed hasp of a giant Master lock. Looks like they prepped this place in advance of their ambush. Looks like they may be a little more than half-smart.
I ease the door open and take a look. Hallway goes straight for about twelve yards then hits a T intersection. Dark. That’s OK. I don’t mind the dark. The dark is just fine. I slip in, close the door behind me and take a whiff. They’re here, smells like they’ve been hanging out for a couple days. I hear the first scream and know where to go. Up to the intersection, down the hall to the right, and straight to the open classroom door.
One of the NYU kids is facedown on the floor with the goth chick kneeling on his back. She’s already shoved her knife through the back of his neck, killing him. Now she’s trying to jam the blade into his skull so she can split it open. The junkie guys stand by, waiting for the piñata to bust.
The other kid has jammed himself in a corner in the obligatory pool of his own fear-piss. His eyes are rolling around and he’s making the high-pitched noise that people make when they’re so scared they might die from it. I hate that noise.
I hear something crunchy.
The chick has the knife in. She gives it a wrenching twist and the dead kid’s skull cracks open. She claws her fingers into the crack, gets a good grip and pulls, tearing the kid’s head open like a piece of rotted fruit. A pomegranate. The junkies edge closer as she starts scooping out clumps of brain. Too late for that kid, so I wait a couple seconds more, watching them as they start to eat, and listening to the other kid’s moaning go up another octave. Then I do my job.
It takes me three silent steps to reach the first one. My right arm loops over his right shoulder. I grab his face with my right hand while my left hand grips the back of his head. I jerk sharply clockwise, pulling up at the same time. I feel his spinal cord tear and drop him, grabbing the second one’s hair before the first one hits the ground. The chick is getting up off the kid’s corpse, coming at me with the knife. I punch the second junkie in the throat and let him drop. It won’t kill him, but he’ll stay down for a second. The chick whips the knife in a high arc and the tip rakes my forehead. Blood oozes from the cut and into my eyes.
Whatever she was before she got bit, she knew a little about using a knife, and still remembers some of it. She’s hanging back, waiting for her pal to get up so they can take me together. I measure the blank glaze in her eyes. Yeah, there’s still a little of her at home. Enough to order pizza and pick out these kids as marks, enough to cut through a lock, but not enough to be dangerous. As long as I’m not stupid. I step in and she thrusts at me with the knife. I grab the blade.
She looks from me to the knife. I’m holding it tightly, blood spilling out between my clenched fingers. The dim light in her eyes gets minutely brighter as something gives her the word: she’s fucked. I twist the knife out of her hand, toss it in the air and catch it by the handle. She turns to run. I grab the back of her leather jacket, step close and jam the knife into her neck at the base of her skull, chopping her medulla in half. I leave the knife there and let her drop to the floor. The second junkie is just getting back up. I kick him down, put my boot on his throat and stomp, twisting my foot back and forth until I hear his neck snap.
I kneel and wipe my hand on his shirt. My blood has already coagulated and the cuts in my hand have stopped bleeding, likewise the cut in my forehead. I check the bodies. One of the guys is missing a couple teeth and has some lacerations on his gums. Looks like he’s been chewing someone’s skull. Probably it belonged to the clown I took care of a couple days ago, the one with the hole in his head who tipped me off to this whole thing. Anyway, his teeth aren’t what I’m interested in.
Both guys have small bites on the backs of their necks. The bite radius and size of the tooth marks make me take a look at the girl’s mouth. Looks like a match. Figure she bit these two and infected them with the bacteria. Happens that way sometimes. Generally a person gets infected, the bacteria starts chewing on their brain and pretty soon they’re reduced to the simple impulse to feed. But sometimes, before they reach that point, they infect a few others. They take a bite, but don’t eat the whole meal if you get me. No one really knows why. Some sob sisters would tell you it’s because they’re lonely. But that’s bullshit. It’s the bacteria compelling them, spreading itself. It’s fucking Darwin doing his thing.
I check the girl’s neck. She infected the others, but something infected her first. The bite’s been marred by the knife I stuck in her, but it’s there. It’s bigger than the others, more violent. In fact, there are little nips all over her neck. Fucking carrier that got her couldn’t decide if it wanted to just infect her or eat her. Whatever, all the same to me. Except it means the job isn’t done yet. Means there’s a carrier still out there. I start to stand up. But something else; a smell on her. I kneel next to her and take a whiff. Something moves behind me.
The other NYU kid. Right, forgot about him. He’s trying to dig his way through the wall. I walk over to him. I’m just about to pop him in the jaw when he does the job for me and passes out. I look him over. No bites. Now normally I wouldn’t do this, but I lost a little blood and I never got to eat my pizza, so I’m pretty hungry. I take out my works and hook the kid up. I’ll only take a pint. Maybe two.
The phone wakes me in the morning. Why the hell someone is calling me in the morning I don’t know, so I let the machine get it.
—This is Joe Pitt. Leave a message.
—Joe, it’s Philip.
I don’t pick up the phone, not for Philip Sax. I close my eyes and try to find my way back to sleep.
—Joe, I think maybe I got something if ya can pick up the phone.
I roll over in bed and pull the covers up to my chin. I try to remember what I was dreaming about so I can get myself back there.
—I don’t wanna bug ya, Joe, but I figure ya gotta be in. It’s ten in the morning, where ya gonna be?
Sleep crawls off into a corner where I can’t find it and I pick up the damn phone.
Product details
- Publisher : Del Rey (December 27, 2005)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 034547824X
- ISBN-13 : 978-0345478245
- Item Weight : 9.2 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.65 x 8.19 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #980,920 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #577 in Vampire Horror
- #4,107 in Hard-Boiled Mystery
- #43,596 in Suspense Thrillers
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Charlie Huston is the author of the bestsellers The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death and The Shotgun Rule, as well as the Henry Thompson trilogy, the Joe Pitt casebooks, and several titles for Marvel Comics. He lives with his family in Los Angeles.
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The main character, Joe Pitt, is your average tough guy. A tall, bulky, leather jacket sporting vampire that does odd jobs as a private detective among other things. The city of Manhattan is split into zones governed by vampire clans; the authoritarian Coalition, hippie/anarchist Society, religious fanatic Enclave, and the gangster territory of The Hood. All the clans have their own opinions of how to live among the uninfected. Joe refuses to associate with any specific clan, and as such, is disrespected as a Rogue. He does what he needs to in order to get the blood his body requires and money for rent while maintaining his relationship with his uninfected (and unaware) girlfriend.
If you like dark/noir style story telling and lots (LOTS) of action, I highly recommend this series, even to people who don't read often. I read the entire series (5 novels) in about a month. That's just insane for me. After that, I continued on to read the Charlie Huston's book Sleepless, which was also fantastic.
Really, with the plot and the world of this book, there is no need for spoilers. The fantasy in this novel in regards to the undead is explain in a pseudo-scientific way, to dispel the supernatural notion right out of your head. While there are elements that do seem to be magical, that is not the focus. The focus is the reality of everyday life, but everyday life for those that live in the seedy underbelly of the city. The same place the hundreds of good and cliche crime novels have been written since for over a century. It is a place I enjoy reading about, and a great place for a vamp to live.
The story has a lot of inner city politics, a fair amount of sex, crime, and a lot of punishment. Really, I detract a star because of the over abusive nature of this book. The main character Joe Pitt lives in a neighborhood that is a little too much for me to handle. It could have been toned down a lot and still been a good book.
The other detractor would be the fact that THERE ARE NO CHAPTERS! Sorry for the bold type, but this drives me nuts. It is like a book on too much coffee, that is spazing out and can't take a break. There don't appear to be too many natural breaks in the story as written, but it could use some. Reading without chapters seems to compress time too much, and pauses in time in the story don't pause us at all. Maybe you would like this, but not me. I just can't stand it.
Overall, a very interesting book that lost 2 stars and gained one. What does this mean for the series? Who knows, but it is a promising start.
Recommended.
Pitt is forty-five years old but looks half that because he's got a vampire virus that requires him to feed on human blood but also makes him relatively unkillable. You can take his head off or snap his neck to end his unlife, but anything less than that guarantees that he's going to stay on the case and catch whoever he's after.
Like these quintessential private eyes, though, Pitt has to operate between agencies that could kill him in an instant if he steps too far out of line. He doesn't allay himself with the other vampire organizations in New York City, and he can't quite stay off their radar. All of these groups find some use for Pitt along the way, work too dirty for their hands, or too risky.
I love the way the character is constantly walking a tightrope throughout this series (so far four books, although the author is currently planning to write one more), and I love the mythology Huston has created in New York's Alphabet City. Although the prose is terse and pared down, from Pitt's New Yorker first-person voiceover littered with f-bombs, I got a real sense of this other world.
Pitt, like his other fictional counterparts, plays the game by his own rules, but he's struggling for survival more than Spade or Marlowe ever did against forces stronger and bigger than he is. I like that underdog aspect, and Huston plays it like a virtuoso.
At first, Pitt's current case looks like a relatively simple one of little girl lost. Amanda Horde has run away from home and her mother wants her returned as soon as possible. However, her wealthy husband, who is also allied with powerful vampire families, doesn't care for Pitt's involvement and makes it clear that he's taking his life in his own hands by following through on the case.
Pitt was picked for a purpose, though. He was once a child of the streets too, and he knows what's waiting on Amanda Horde. So he goes searching for her despite the danger. Problems get worse when all of the vampire clans get involved to one degree or another.
Then there are the zombies.
This was my first Joe Pitt book, but I intend to read them all. I listened to this one on audio book, and Scott Brick delivers a stunning vocalization of the characters, the mood, and the city that just draws you in. I'm really torn between reading the next one or listening to it. I read much faster than an audio book, but I loved the feeling that Pitt was sitting down telling me this story himself.
Top reviews from other countries
物語はPittがゾンビ・ウィルスに感染した人間を調査する場面から始まる。感染者数名を「片づけた」Pittだったが、感染元となる人物が判明しない。一方、とある金持ちの女性からPittに対し、「行方不明になった娘を探してほしい」という仕事の依頼がくる。どうやら彼女はPittがVampyreだということを知っている模様。そしてその夫である研究者との接触。
いくつかの派閥に分かれて縄張り争いをするニューヨークのVampyre達。その中にあってPittは一人、どの派閥にも属さず仕事をする。事件が積み重なり、一見関係ないと思われた出来事が一本の線でつながったとき、ものごとは加速度的に進みだす。そして、とある事情から「血」を絶たれたPittにも驚くべき変化が訪れる。。。
この本を購入する以前は、作者の名前を聞いたこともなければ本の内容がだいたいどういうものなのか一切知らなかった。いわば、全く白紙の状態で読み始めた。結果は正解。主人公であるJoe Pittの一人称による語りは、小説の背景(登場人物の多くは太陽の光が届かないところ、あるいは夜しか活動できない)とも相まって、物語に独特の影を落としているが、これが良い。主人公以外の人物もキャラクターの輪郭がはっきりわかるように描かれている。探偵小説的プロットも良い。必ずしもミステリーという範囲の小説ではないが、謎が解決されるのも良い。
なお、Joe Pittを主人公とするこの物語、Joe Pitt Casebooksという名前でシリーズ化されており、現在まで本作以外に4作が刊行されている。ステファニー・メイヤーの描くようなヴァンパイアものを期待している方にはどうかと思うが、ノワール的、というか、著者のCharlie Hustonが言うところのパルプ小説的なヴァンパイアものを志向される方にはおすすめです。
The basic premise and its component parts (Vampire bad guy who is actually a decent erm...person; dark and dismal cityscape as a seting; paranormal mystery) are common enough but Huston has grabbed them, squished them in a blender with copious amounts of blood and gore and whizzed it on full power for a while resulting in a spectacularly new concoction. The mystery at the novels heart is a good one; the characters are all finely drawn and visciously nasty/depraved/flawed and the spirited pace of the novel will keep you turning pages until there aren't any more. But thats ok...there are two sequels so far so you can then just run to your PC and order them too, can't you?? I must admit, I enjoyed this one so much, i couldn't even wait for amazon's speedy delivery and had to run immediatly to the nearest bookshop and grab the copy of No Dominion, which comes next. Sorry Amazon....
The "vampyres" of this tale aren't, thankfully, some magic walking corpses, but are people with a disease - one caused by the also annoyingly mis-spelled "Vyrus" - which makes them crave blood and be unusually sensitive to sunlight. The hero of the tale, one Joe Pitt, is one of them, and manages to live alone instead of in one of the vampire "clans" that make up the criminal underworld of his city, by doing odd jobs for the clans and working as an enforcer and private investigator. So really it isn't a vampire tale at all, it's a noir crime thriller.
It has all the clichés that you'd expect in that genre - the loner hero, violence, fast-talking, double-crosses, femmes fatales and so on - but rises above being cliché by extremely sharp writing, great humour, and a wide variety of characters (there are few mere cardboard cutouts) with distinctive voices. There are a couple of somewhat irritating questions left unanswered at the end, for which I deduct a star, but perhaps they are answered in a sequel, of which there are four. Overall, I recommend this book.