Book Review: Charlie Huston’s Every Last Drop

Posted July 7, 2011 by Kathy Davie in Book Reviews

Book Review: Charlie Huston’s Every Last Drop

Every Last Drop


by

Charlie Huston


urban fantasy in a paperback edition that was published by Del Rey Books on September 30, 2008 and has 252 pages.

Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon


Other books by this author which I have reviewed include Already Dead, No Dominion, Half the Blood of Brooklyn, My Dead Body

Fourth in the Joe Pitt urban fantasy series set in a contemporary New York City about a lone vampire refusing to bow down to any one group of vampires. Joe doesn’t care about anyone else’s agenda. He simply wants to be his own man, um, vampire. But rogues aren’t tolerated and every clan, society, enclave wants a piece of Joe for their own ends.

My Take

Oh wow. It makes sense. It really does. But still. Oh lord.

I hate that I have to wait to read My Dead Body. I am dying to know how they all cope with what Joe has unleashed, hee-hee-hee . . .

The Story

After burning all his bridges in Half the Blood of Brooklyn, Joe is in miserable exile in the Bronx. Even more of a loner — and alone — than ever. Joe doesn’t even know if Evie made it through the Change.

When Dexter Predo comes calling, Joe is willing to listen. Anything to escape the wilds of the Bronx and get back to Manhattan. His life may be forfeit but Joe would rather scrape and survive on home ground then do the same in a strange land and now Predo needs a spy in Amanda Horde’s new Clan. Seems Predo doesn’t like the attraction Amanda’s ideas have for vampires. Nor does he like the idea of her finding a cure for the Vyrus. No Vyrus. No more vampires. No more little kingdom for Predo to terrorize. Worse, Predo is afraid that Amanda will broadcast their existence and he makes a deal with Joe.

What starts as a spy mission evolves into a turnabout with Joe spying out “every last drop” and what he learns turns everything on its head. Terry and the Society, the Count and the Enclave, Predo and the Collective all have a lot of scrambling to do.

The Characters

We met Amanda Horde when Joe is hired to find her in Already Dead. Exposed to the reality of vampires, Amanda takes on a new bodyguard, Sala, a cross-tranny vampire who also becomes her lover. Amanda also takes over her father’s research with the aim of finding a cure.

Mrs. Vandewater seems to have survived Joe’s assault on her in No Dominion and is eager to take her revenge on him even as she “rescues” him from Alistair Lament.

Esperanza is working the Bronx. Working to mold it into a civilized clan with a better chance at survival. Modeling it on the groups over on the island. With a hankering for Joe. A survivor from Lament’s idea of raising newly-changed Vampyres.

The Mungiki are a new clan. Savage. Based on an article, Menace read in, he thinks, a National Geographic about Kikuyu farmers in Kenya, a small beat down group, who won out against Nairobi government forces. Determined to get out from under Lament, Menace escapes with his own small crew making them into a force to be feared.

The Cover and Title

Oh yeah, the trademark split cover with a partial face showing a bit of fang. Only the cigarette is missing as Joe contemplates his drink under a red-hazed New York City skyline. With such an appropriate title too!

For it is Every Last Drop that Joe discovers.