Ripping good yarn

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sixbadthings Just finished Charlie Huston’s Six Bad Things, sequel to Caught Stealing, which I micro-reviewed here a little while ago. Six Bad Things is even better than Caught Stealing — funnier, bloodier (maybe; I didn’t do a body count), more poignant. Hank Thompson is back, and we get to find out exactly what he’ll do to protect his parents, who have been not so subtly threatened by the Russian mob. Along the way home he’ll meet up with a drug-dealing stripper, a truckload of mullet-headed subgeniuses who recognize Hank from his America’s Most Wanted episode (an entire episode devoted to Hank, that is), a variety of crooks both blood-crazed and half-witted, and a dog named Hitler.

The appeal of Huston’s Hank Thompson series lies in Hank, of course. On the one hand, he’s a guy who’s fell into the shit purely from doing a favor for a friend. On the other, he’s a guy who is finding it easier and easier to kill strangers and friends alike. Watching Hank’s devolution from nice guy to “dangerous man” (the title of book three in this trilogy) is a lot like watching the wreck of the Hindenburg. He never stops caring about his parents and the other innocents who get swept up in his violent whirlwind, so he never quite loses his appeal — his humanity, if you’ll forgive another Hindenburg reference. He seems like such a nice young man even when he’s shooting holes in people’s bellies.

I do have a few problems with this book. Hank is just so damned stupid sometimes. I mean, here he is one of America’s Most Wanted, and he thinks he can protect his parents by going straight to them? Not a wise play. And Huston also violated (to a mild degree) Chekhov’s Law, inasmuch as he trotted out Hitler and then failed to use him to maximal effect.

Quibbles notwithstanding, this was one of those rare books I had to take with me to work and read to the wee hours of the morning. I’ve already ordered book three.

Walnut, November 5, 2009. Category: Books 'n' Authors.