July 31, 2006
Huston doesn't let his battered, tormented protagonist rest for one moment in the exciting final volume of his trilogy featuring Henry "Hank" Thompson, now an unwilling hit man for David Dolokhov, the Russian mobster whose $4 million he stole (and lost) in 2005's Six Bad Things
. With a botched plastic surgery job that's left him disfigured and in chronic pain, Hank is only able to deal with his nightmares about the people he's killed with handfuls of prescription painkillers. He's on the verge of slipping under when Dolokhov assigns him to protect Miguel Arenas, a rising young baseball star and gambling addict who also owes the Russian a big chunk of change. Hank is forced to confront his own past as a former minor league player as his bodyguard gig takes him to New York, where his misadventures began. While the book drags a bit in the middle, the pace picks up toward the end as Hank finds himself once again doing what he does best, running for his life.
August 1, 2006
Hank Thompson comes full circle in this fitting end to a mayhem-packed trilogy (" Caught Stealing" , 2004, and " Six Bad Things" , 2005) that also packs a potent emotional punch. The young man who lost his chance at a baseball career in an auto accident that killed his best friend has descended into Fat Elvis mode, digging pills out of the carpet of his Vegas flop when he is not killing reprobates for a Russian mobster who holds the lives of Hank's parents in his hands. But when he is ordered to babysit a Mets phenom with a gambling problem so bad he'll bet on which guy at the casino urinals will finish first, Hank's penchant for doing the right thing in the wrong way sets into motion a series of very bad events. He may fumble around, but when his life's on the line, Hank becomes a virtuoso killing machine. It's like when Sundance shoots at that rock in Bolivia: he is better when he moves. The satisfying story moves right along with him, leaving fans glad they still have Huston's other series antihero--vampire detective Joe Pitt--to kick around. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)