Secret Dead Blog Recommends: The Joe Pitt Casebooks

It's become a ritual for me. Christmas Day, open up a Barnes & Noble or Borders Gift Card. December 26, get my ass to a Barnes & Noble or Borders to pick up the latest Joe Pitt Casebook.

Joe Pitt, of course, is Charlie Huston's vampire PI. I know, I know. Sounds like a thousand other books that take a supernatural character (say, a witch, or a wizard, or Anderson Cooper), dress him/her up in a fedora, strap a gun to his/her sides, and nudge 'em out into a Gritty Yet Fantastical Urban Environment. And somehow, this mystical PI manages to save the world from an invasion of orcs, or something.

That ain't Joe Pitt.

Because Joe Pitt lives in New York. Yes, the real New York. He's got real New York problems. He's got people constantly trying to fuck with him. And forget trying to save the planet from mystical creatures; most of the time, he's trying like hell to avoid his ass getting beat to death. In the latest installment, Half the Blood of Brooklyn, Pitt shares his fondest wish:

Rogue.

Alone.

God, I want it.

God, I want to be alone. Please let me be alone. Leave me alone. Don't ask me for anything. I don't want to do it anymore. I don't want to think about anyone else anymore. I'm no good at it.

It's a sentiment I totally get. And see, that's the appeal of Joe Pitt, and the world he inhabits. It's our world, with the same bullshit problems of money and political in-fighting and turf wars and ideological battles... only, with the extra layer of vampirism—here, caused by a blood-bourne "vyrus"—to raise the stakes. (Like I could resist that?)

If you're a Charlie Huston fan, but haven't dipped into the Pitts because of the supernatural stuff... just get over it. They're as brutal and brilliant as his straight crime novels. And that means they're as brutal and brilliant as it gets.