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A review by litwrite
Half the Blood of Brooklyn by Charlie Huston
3.0
2.75 stars. This time, Joe Pitt has to track down a particularly deadly 'Van Helsing', a human that has found out about the existence of Vampires and has taken on the task of destroying them, while simultaneously acting as Terry Bird's new enforcer. He and Lydia take meetings with important Clans in Brooklyn in an effort to expand Society territory. Unfortunately their foray into Brooklyn ends up a deadly mess.
Okay, Huston has been watching way too much Santa Sangre. This book really is stretching the edges of the 'noir' tone that the first book in this series did so well. I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I mean come on. Midget freakshow vampires and undead Orthodox Jews? Sounds awesome right?
Unfortunately I think that the awesome was actually strained by the writing style. Noir just did not suit the subject matter here. You have something so patently absurd, but the exposition is replayed in such a downtrodden, no frills style that it's hard to get excited about it.
As far as expanding the larger plot that Huston has been building regarding turf wars in the New York area, this felt a bit like an unecessary road trip. I didn't really get where this was going.
There is also one very important sentence in this book - a sentence that I felt really invalidated the entire last novel of this whole series. I'll mention it in my review of number 5.
Okay, Huston has been watching way too much Santa Sangre. This book really is stretching the edges of the 'noir' tone that the first book in this series did so well. I really wanted to like this book more than I did. I mean come on. Midget freakshow vampires and undead Orthodox Jews? Sounds awesome right?
Unfortunately I think that the awesome was actually strained by the writing style. Noir just did not suit the subject matter here. You have something so patently absurd, but the exposition is replayed in such a downtrodden, no frills style that it's hard to get excited about it.
As far as expanding the larger plot that Huston has been building regarding turf wars in the New York area, this felt a bit like an unecessary road trip. I didn't really get where this was going.
There is also one very important sentence in this book - a sentence that I felt really invalidated the entire last novel of this whole series. I'll mention it in my review of number 5.