Joe Pitt
5 total works
After a year hiding out in the Bronx, Joe Pitt is given an assignment he can't refuse.
One Clan needs Joe to inform on another, but he's playing them both while keeping his eye on the main prize: his girl Evie is on the Island somewhere and he'll do anything to get her back. And in this case, 'anything' means coming face to face with the horrendous secret that lies beneath the Vampyre world. It's a quest that will drive him to the heart of the two most perplexing mysteries of the Vampyre community: how were the Clans originally formed, and where do the powerful ones get all that blood?
The search for the answer takes Joe to a dark corner of Queens, puts him face to face with a mythic and savage Clan, and leaves him in possession of a vision he'll never scrape off his retinas - as well as a bargaining chip that redefines his place in the Vampyre universe.
They live among us, slaves to the very condition that empowers them. They are the Vampyre, and their sole chance at survival lies in banding into Clans. Only Joe Pitt has gone his own way. The upside is freedom. The downside is there's nobody on his side when trouble comes around. Joe gets rough receptions from all the countless Clans shifting about on the island of Manhattan, but his current trouble is with the Coalition - the Clan that controls the city river to river, from 14th Street to 110th Street. To make things right, Joe takes on his most perilous case: The daughter of a prominent New York family is missing, and her Vampyre fascination makes Joe the ideal man for this high-stakes job.
With his ferocious style, Charlie Huston offers a thrilling new twist to one of our oldest myths.
–Stephen King
“Hard-boiled horror, pulp noir vampires, decaying urban souls– you’re gonna need a shower after this one. . . . [Huston] kicks down the door of horror.”
–Fangoria, on Already Dead
There’s only so much room on the Island, only so much blood, and Manhattan’s Vampyre Clans aren’t interested in sharing. So when the Vyrus-infected dregs of New York’s outer boroughs start creeping across the bridges and through the tunnels, the Clans want to know why.
Bad luck for PI and general hard case Joe Pitt.
See, Joe used to be a Rogue, used to work off his own dime, picked his own gigs, but tight times and a terminally ill girlfriend pushed him into the arms of the renegade Society Clan. Now he has all the cash and blood he needs, but at a steep price. The price tonight is crossing the bridge, rolling to Coney Island, finding the Freak Clan, and figuring out what’s driving that bunch of savages to scratch at the Society’s door. No need to look far. The answer lies around the corner in Gravesend. Convenient, all those graves.
From uptown to the boardwalk, war drums are beating. Murderous family feuds and personal grudges are being drawn and brandished, along with the long knives. Blood will spill and, big surprise, Joe’s in the middle. But hey, why should this night be different from any other?
Sunset to sunrise: put off a war, keep your head attached to your neck, and save your girl. Check. Joe’s on the case.
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
New York's favourite rogue detective, Joe Pitt, is about to find himself caught in a nasty power struggle between competing Vampyre clans.
Down to his last few bags of blood and behind on rent, Joe takes on a decidedly dirty job: finding the source of a powerful drug that's hit the street, one strong enough to affect Vampyres and make its users do unpredictable things, things that could bring unwelcome exposure to New York's Vampyre community.
Unfortunately, that entails crossing the mid-Manhattan turf of the Coalition into the equally fearsome territory of the Hood in Harlem. One thing about Vampyres: they have plenty of time on their bloodstained hands to engage in complex, violent feuds. Worse, Joe might be some powerful player's idea of a sacrificial pawn ...