Sort of back to basic!
Not to form, though!

“Half the Blood of Brooklyn” is a bad entry in the Joe Pitt series, but the bitter truth is that if you like Charlie Huston you are going to read it anyway.

Charlie Huston seems to have gotten some harsh critics for that book because “Every Last Drop” is better. This time I didn’t have problems with the dialogues and the plot has a good rhythm, which is essential to understand Charlie Huston’s punk-hardboiled style. But once again the author makes the same mistake as in “Half the Blood of Brooklyn”, “Every Last Drop” feels again like a period of time in the life of Joe Pitt, rather than a novel. It doesn’t have a beginning nor does it have a proper ending.
“Every Last Drop” starts with Joe Pitt going back to The Bronx. From there he gets the opportunity to return to Manhattan. Once again on the island he’ll do everything to rescue Evie, a vampyre like him now. This is not a joke but “that is” supposed to be “a great” secret that no one else has to know. But we do. Plop!
The other big secret is to know from where The Coalition gets its blood, which, although it has never been mentioned before it is predictable.
So, no mystery to resolve, just suspense and a new chapter in Joe Pitt’s life that shows only glimpses of the quality of “Already Dead” and “No Dominion”. Honestly I’m not dying for the next entry in the series.

I think Charlie Huston got an idea in his head that became too big to be captured in just one book. It started with “Half the Blood of Brooklyn” and I hope that he ends it with “My Dead Body”.

I think something similar happened to Robert Wilson’s Falcón series. Same problem had John Connolly in trouble with his Charlie Parker series.
All I know is that when books are too connected with one another, the plot of the latest book will always carry the unsolved questions of the previous book. Eventually these questions will need closure, but when you finally are getting near the ending it comes with no surprise.
That is exactly what happened with Robert Wilson’s “The Ignorance of Blood”, a book that seems more written to give answers to questions asked two books before, rather than to give Javier Falcón a new mystery to resolve.
In the case of John Connolly, I think the “The Black Angel” was a really good book, but if I compare it with “The Unquiet”, it is of less quality and feels in a way forced, which perhaps isn’t a surprise since John Connolly had to give closure to the a circle that started with “The Killing Kind”.

I want Chandler back, I want Mystery back, and I want intelligent plots. I want the quality he showed in “Already Dead”.


Cheers
CristianHC

Betyg 3