No Dominion by Charlie Huston (Orbit Books)

No Dominion is the second installment in the Joe Pitt casebook series by American author Charlie Huston. It is the sequel to “Already Dead” (originally published in 2005) which I reviewed at my blog last August. In No Dominion Charlie Huston pretty much picks up the story where he left off at the end of Already Dead and when we jump right into the action we find our badass vampire P.I. knuckling up in a bar-fight. That is not all too shocking but what is shocking is the fact that the vampire is ’spazzing’ as if under influence of some drug. When Joe has come back to home, Joe finds out that his “stash” is dangerously running low and that makes him a desperate man. Desperate for a job as well and for some blood to hold the vyrus at bay for a bit longer. Thus, he searches out Terry Bird, his former ‘employee’ and leader of the Society clan. After informing Terry on his strange encounter last night, the Society leader offers Joe the job finding out the source of this new drug on the vampire market. Blood and a lot of cash are the rewards. Sounds like a good deal. However, it involves paying the neighborhood above the 111th a visit. You do not want to be found there, as it is also known as ‘the Hood’. That is where all the crazy cats hang out..

Similar to picking up the storyline, Huston also picks up the pace and the gritty noir style he’s known for. As with Already Dead, No Dominion is brutally fast-paced and rushing into the action. Good thing there plenty of that in this novel. The thing I like most with Charlie Huston and his Joe Pitt series, is that he does not waste too much time outlining the whole situation, he dumps the reader just right back into the action. That is what we came for in the first place, that is why we picked up this novel in the first place. His prose is, like I said, very to the point without neglecting details that make his novels so brilliantly crafted. His dialogues are amongst the most powerful I have seen and exhale that gritty noir style that I have come to like so much. No flowery descriptions, no info-dumps just Joe Pitt doing the math and kicking some serious vampire ass. At first glance the plotline seemed to be a bit too linear, but it turned out completely otherwise with some multi-layered twists going on that will leave you stunned. The setting is once more vivid, New York downtown seems like a great place to kick it but what really stood out was our newest addition; ‘the Hood’. The scenes where Joe met up with ‘warlord’ Dj Grave Digga were certainly among the best of the Joe Pitt casebooks so far, because Joe’s style contrasted Digga’s hiphop style in a real nice way and that seemed to improve the overall quality of the story. On the downside, some scenes were a little bit too stretched I found and could have been resolved in much quicker manner. Nevertheless, it did not hurt the story all that much.
Speaking of the length, another great thing is that Charlie Huston keeps his novels around the 250-260 pages mark resulting in a short but entertaining read. Just lenghty enough for you to hold your breath while reading! Apart from that, it makes up for a pleasant change from all the thick works (600+) that pop up out of nowhere these days

The major downside of the novel is the characterization of any other character than Joe. Evie, his girl, was used once again a sort of plot device to show the more humane side of Joe’s personality and trying to make empathizing with our protagonist maybe a bit more easily. Most of the vampire characters could be replaced with each other (with the exception of Dj Grave Digga I mentioned earlier, I would like to see more of this guy) . The thing is with the vampire characters is that it so easy to detect the different archetypes that they are not challenging to read about. Joe Pitt on the other hand still manages to surprise me at times and that alone makes the novels worthwhile.

So rounding up this review, I can honestly say No Dominion is a blast. It offers the same gritty noir-style with the brutal pace as did Already Dead, only added to that we have a nicely multi-layered plot and Joe Pitt ends up making some interesting choices. On the downside, the characterization was not all that special but the rest really did make up for that. Bring on the third Joe Pitt (coming our way late December 2007) Half the Blood of Brooklyn I’d say! For I rate this effort by Charlie Huston:

8.5 / 10