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Every Last Drop

Charlie Huston

Published 2008      250 pages

Summary (from the book jacket)

After a year hiding out in the Bronx, Joe Pitt is given an assignment he can't refuse. One Clan needs Joe to inform on another, but he's playing them both while keeping his eye on the main prize: his girl Evie is on the Island somewhere and he'll do anything to get her back. And in this case, 'anything' means coming face to face with the horrendous secret that lies beneath the Vampyre world. It's a quest that will drive him to the heart of the two most perplexing mysteries of the Vampyre community: how were the Clans originally formed, and where do the powerful ones get all that blood?

The search for the answer takes Joe to a dark corner of Queens, puts him face to face with a mythic and savage Clan, and leaves him in possession of a vision he'll never scrape off his retinas - as well as a bargaining chip that redefines his place in the Vampyre universe.

The Review

Every Last Drop is the fourth outing for Charlie Huston’s vampire private investigator Joe Pitt. This is the fourth book in a series of five - so new readers would be best served to read the books in order (starting with Already Dead) rather than jumping in here.

Joe Pitt’s not really a PI in the traditional sense, certainly he has never applied for his investigator license and he doesn’t operate out of an office either. Pitt is more of a fixer or a rough hand, known locally as “A guy could take some shifts when your bouncer got picked up for armed robbery and you needed a quick replacement. Guy you could come to when that deadbeat boyfriend still hadn’t gotten out of your apartment four months after you dumped him. Guy you could slip a few bucks to escort said boyfriend to the curb.”

Joe’s problem is that he’s no longer on his home turf of Manhattan but he’s been exiled to the Bronx, a fate worse than death for most vampyres. Having better survival skills than most of his vyrus infected brethren Joe’s survived a whole year in the Bronx by keeping a low profile and moving around a lot. No longer known as the local fixer and unable to work, times are tough and blood is in increasingly short supply.

Serendipity sees Joe given to chance to return to the island of Manhattan but with enemies from the vampyre Clans on every street corner how long he’ll survive his return is another matter...

Previous novels in this series have seen Joe, the antihero protagonist of these stories, fight against seemingly impossible odds to come out, if not exactly on top at least alive and relatively unscathed. The gory, visceral violence has been as much of an attraction as the smart dialogue and hardboiled style but Every Last Drop sees a change of focus for this series and dialogue now takes up much of the place usually reserved for bloody violent action.

The change of style left this reader wishing for a little less conversation and a little more action during the first half of the story. This wish was granted during the second half of the book, when Joe finally finds out how the vampyre Clans get their blood, but the story still didn’t seem as punchy as previous offerings from this author.

Given that Joe’s primary talent is for playing all sides in a conflict against each other, a role that he plays to perfection in this story, Every Last Drop sets the scene for a potentially explosive finish to the series even if it is a little lacking in action itself.

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