Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #147640 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 336 pages

Review
"There are many things to love about Charlie Huston's fiction-he's a brilliant storyteller, and writes the best dialogue since George V. Higgins-but what pushes my personal happy-button is his morbid sense of humor and seemingly effortless ability to create scary/funny bad guys who make Beavis and Butthead look like Rhodes Scholars. [Charlie Huston has] written several very good books, but this is the first authentically great one, a runaway freight that feels like a combination of William Burroughs and James Ellroy. Mystic Arts is, however, fiercely original-very much its own thing."--Stephen King
"Smoking-hot... scorchingly good dialogue and banner-worthy chapter headings (like "Till His Neighbors Smelled Him" and "To Keep Him From Crushing My Spine."). And Mr. Huston, whose own brain matter is as much on display as the stuff that gets spattered here, finally delivers a book that anyone can admire. No strong stomach required."--"New York Times"
"Huston has outdone himself by introducing disaster-prone Web Goodhue, the star of a comic masterpiece called The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death...Charlie Huston has for several years been one of the best-kept secrets in American fiction; this novel might move him into the mainstream. If you believe that the world is mad-a position that with each passing day becomes easier to accept-The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death will provide welcome support for your view. The novel had me laughing out loud many times, but of course, like all the best comic fiction ("Catch-22" and "Portnoy's Complaint" come to mind), at bottom it is deadly serious. Life is violent, messy and all too short, and laughter is the bestrevenge."--"Washington Post"
"Just when you think you've caught up with him on the curve, Charlie Huston drives right off the cliff, landing on a road no one else could see...Shockingly original...The outlandish characters are brazen originals, and the dialogue is the roar of a death-defying talent."--"New York Times Book Review"
"A witty and amusing dark tale of friendship and family and all the problems that come with both. Web is a likeable character in spite of his personality disorder, one that the reader wants to see come out on top, which makes the book that much more fun to read."--bookbitch.com
"Though most of the characters have all the noir subtlety of "Sin City," this hard-shelled novel has a soft, sweet centre. Searching for a measure of healing and to repair the damage done them by their parents and the world, the good characters struggle toward redemption. [Huston] has found a way to cast a whole new generation into the noir genre and that can only be a good thing for its future."--reviewingtheevidence.com
"Genre writers too often set the hook quickly and hard, glossing over the subtleties of character in their haste to reel in the reader, ultimately using plot as a club. Not so Huston...The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death is as darkly funny as it is graceful, not necessarily what you'd expect given that it's a novel about a guy whose livelihood involves mopping up blood and bone fragments...If one tends to find humor in unlikely places, Huston has created a work that is sly, twisted and surprising-one well worth the investment of time."--"Denver Post"
"Huston's novels are among the most imaginative and compelling in the mystery and thrillergenres...In The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, Huston finds pathos and the sublime in a story about an occupation for which there is no training or career path."--"Pittsburgh Tribune --Pittsburgh Tribune

Customer Reviews

Good but not great
I am a little disappointed Charlie Huston has not caught on a bit more in the UK. He is a brilliant pulp writer and his books are always an enjoyable, exciting and fast read.

I would though have to agree with the negative points from a previous reviewer. The action and suspense were not up to level with books like The Shotgun Rule and Caught Stealing. But that doesn't mean it isn't much better than the majority of what is going these days. It was tough to like the main character, Web, or anyone else really except for the big Po Sin.

While you wait for Huston's next - I fully recommend Josh Bazell's first book - Beat the Reaper. Fantastic book in the same vein.

Great, giggling gorefest
You have to know what you like to like Huston. Huston is, in my opinion one of the most outstandingly fresh and talented writers of quality working today. But he is a genre within the crime genre, for a rarefied market that appreciates wisecracking, foul mouthed and bloodspattered fiction.

Huston does humour like no one else in the straight crime field. His blistering and caustic characters are all too witty for their own good and the protagonist of 'Mystic Arts...' is no different. Web's mouth works overtime and gets him into all sorts of trouble. He is intelligent, bitingly so and yet, until we understand his backstory, appears something of a wastrel.

But Huston is also a fan of fairly extreme gore in his books and really lets rip with the graphic detail in this story of a Trauma Cleaner...and really, if you know this is the field the book is set in, don't read it and be surprised at extensive descriptions of blood, gray matter and other bodily and insectoid nastiness. The novel opens with a graphic description of a nipple piercing...i'm not squemish but i was curling my toes... but stick with it and the gold is there, once you wipe the gore off its shiny surface.

The story is solid, the characterisation great and the dialogue sublime (if you can cope with oodles of swearing, unconventional punctuation and occassional un-PCness). Web is an out of work teacher suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, resisting all help from his friends to climb out of the black hole of depression. Strange that salvation should come in the form of picking up other peoples suicidal remains then. But come it does, after turf wars amongst trauma cleaning professionals, kidnapping, vanjacking, illegal almond importation and several nasty fights. The story is fast paced and highly engaging.

Not as good as Huston's Hank Thompson trilogy (and really, what could be???)but better than the Shotgun Rule, read it, laugh aloud and squirm with squemishness in equal measure. Recommended.

Imagine Hunter Thompson writing Fiction on Acid
Webster "Web" Fillmore Goodhue is the ultimate wiseass slacker. He's got a mouth that won't quit, an aversion to busses, second only to his aversion to work. However, like all of us, he has to eat. So he winds up working for a guy named Po Sin who runs an organization called Clean Team. These are the guys who clean up those motel and hotel rooms, garages and bedrooms and anyplace else someone might have blown their brains out or slashed their wrists in.

It's a messy job, but someone's gotta do it. Then one day he meets a gorgeous gal named Soledad, who wants him to do a little of his special kind of cleaning up off the books. No paperwork, no police. He shouldn't, but she's beautiful. Oh what trouble Web is in for, but you won't be in any as you sift though this standalone thriller at the speed of laughter. This is one funny story about a guy who you'll hate to love and love to hate. This is every bit as good as Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. In fact, imagine Hunter Thompson writing fiction on acid and you'll get a good idea of the wild ride you're in for here.

Reviewed by Stephanie Sane