No Dominion: A Novel
by Charlie Huston
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Book Summary Information
Author: Charlie HustonEdition: Paperback
Published: 2006-12-26
ISBN: 0345478258
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Del Rey
Book Reviews of No Dominion: A Novel
Book Review: Smart, sharp and gritty fun.
Summary: 5 Stars
Most vampire novels suck. They are usually pretentious, boring, and just writing one typically exposes a lack of genuine creativity. Most of them are Anne Rice knockoffs and Anne Rice has only written one decent vampire novel (actually one decent novel) in 30-odd years (Interview With A Vampire) and the rest have been reheated dreck. 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King, also written over 30 years ago, remains the gold standard. Most of what has been written about the undead since it just sophomoric garbage.
Occasionally however, a writer will slam the conventions of the bloodsucker against a stone wall, brake all its bones and rebuild it from the ground up into something new, exciting and ingenious. That is what Charlie Huston has done here in Joe Pitt's Manhattan and his take on it is a nasty and fun read.
Everybody summarizes, don't know why but we all do sometimes so here is my Cliff Notes version: Manhattan is occupied by vampyres, carved up along political and racial, and in at least one case, spiritual affiliations. Think of major and minor mob families and a few large gangs who each have a cut of the pie and all, naturally, want a bigger slice at the expense of the others.
Enter Joe Pitt. Joe is a narcotic and riveting invention. Undead, hard-boiled like a 10-minute egg, works as a Rogue PI, but you could just as easily label him an assassin, a contract killer and a born loser. He can smack you around with his razor wit or his handgun, usually both. His smart mouth occasionally causes him to take a nasty beating, but no pushover is Joe, but he can take as good as he gives which is the essence of a good anti-hero. Bitter, worn down by fate, dangerous as a venom-dipped dagger, he still has remnants of morality and humanity that draws you to his side when things break bad.
What is best about this book is the raw energy and streetwise punch of the story. Its pretty exciting stuff, especially when you check out the odd format of the book. It is a fairly short novel by todays standards, (under 300p), the sentences are themselves stripped to the bone, and yet the author loads each passage with such force and life that you will hardly believe it isn't twice its actual length. The dialog is taut and spare, the characters are so vivid and colorful that they flash off of the page, and the action is almost completely non-stop. There are three Joe Pitt novels as of this review, this is the middle one. The other two are no-brainer, must-reads for me.
This is very street, nothing baroque, overwrought or dusty about it. "No Dominion" is full of drugs, booze, blood (and addicts of all three), nasty violence, sexuality, lots of heat and wild dialogue that will make you laugh hard enough to choke.
The only criticism that some will have for this book is the ending. Usually it is the mark of an amateur to have loose ends tied up in a few pages of exposition or dialogue at the end of a story. Usually. In the case of "No Dominion", it is not only forgivable, but you know the author did it on purpose like tossing his coat over a chair after a long day of slamming readers from wall to wall until everyone is wrung dry. It served dual purpose: it filled in the holes for people who want every last sliver of the shattered mirror put into place, and for the rest of us, it keep the dry stuff out of the way of the runaway train narrative of the story itself. It is clear that the author knows better, but it was a good choice as far as I was concerned because I was more interested in the velocity and vibrancy of the story than the loose thread or two that got sewn up at the back of the book.
A completely killer read by a noir knockout artist. After a book like this, I know I am going to read every single book Charlie Huston has written, as soon as I can get my hands on them. I hear his Hank Thompson trilogy is at least as good as this so this guy looks like a gold mine.
Summary of No Dominion: A Novel
Joe Pitt’s life sucks. He hasn’t had a case or a job in God knows how long and his stashes are running on empty. What stashes? The only ones that count to a guy like Joe: blood and money. The money he uses to buy blood; the blood he drinks. Hey, buddy, it’s that or your neck–you want to choose? The only way to lay his hands on both is to take a gig with the local Vampyre Clan. See, something new is on the streets, a new high, a high so strong it can send a Vampyre spazzing through Joe’s local watering hole. Till Joe sends him through a plate-glass window, that is.So it’s time for Joe to gut up and swallow that pride and follow the leads wherever they go. It won’t be long before he’s slapping stoolies, getting sapped, and being taken for a ride above 110th Street. Someone’s pulling Joe’s strings, and now he’s riding the A train, looking to find who it is. He’s gonna cut them when he finds them–the strings and the hands that hold them.
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