Meet Joe Pitt

First off, Twilight this ain’t. If you pick up a Joe Pitt novel thinking it’s just another in the series of family friendly urban fantasy books, you’ll be shocked. But if you’re looking for a hard bitten noir with a big splash of horror thrown in, this might just be your new favourite series of books.

Already Dead is the first in a series of books featuring Joe Pitt, vampire PI. It has a clever – if not super original, because face it, it’s almost impossible to be super original with vampires – premise. Vampires – or rather, those infected by the vampyre virus – live in secret in New York, the city divided into tribes who keep to their own part of town. One of the few who walks between them is loner vamp Joe Pitt, making him the man to come to if you want some trouble taken care of but you don’t want to get your own hands dirty. And when that trouble takes the form of someone infecting humans with a zombie virus that turns them into ‘shamblers’, it really doesn’t get any dirtier.

I must admit the only reason I picked up this book was that my friend, Murder Bathroom Denise, recommended it, and that’s the only reason I stuck with it – and I’m glad I did. The hard-bitten ‘tec tone that it starts with is so macho it almost veers into parody – it’s only as you get into the book and the nuances of the character unfold that you warm to Joe and his world.

NEXT BIT CONTAINS SPOILERS

Because it’s the characters and the smartly realised world that make this a series worth investigating – the plot itself is the usual humdrum of runaway wild child/dark secret but with a dash of undead thrown in (hint to authors: child abuse is now the first thing we readers suspect, not the last, so stop trying to make it your big reveal). But Charlie Huston has created a charismatic character and a dark, grubby underworld that cleverly reflects the upper-world, and is sharp enough to keep us hooked.

What do you know? This might just be my new favourite series of books...