Already Dead

By: Charlie Huston

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 9 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

From the Battery to the Bronx, Manhattan is crawling with Vampyres. Joe Pitt is one of them, and he's not happy about it. Yeah, he gets to be tough as nails and hard to kill. But spending his nights trying to score a pint of blood to feed the Vyrus that's eating at him isn't his idea of a good time.

Now some fool who got himself infected with a flesh-eating bacteria is lurching around, trying to munch on folks' brains. Joe hates shamblers, but he's still the one who has to deal with them. It ain't easy going his own way, refusing to ally with the Clans that run the undead underside of Manhattan.

But it's worse once he gets mixed up with the Coalition and finds himself searching for a little rich girl who's gone missing. Now anarchist Vampyres are pushing him around, a crazy cult is stalking him, and Joe's got to find that girl and kill that shambler before the sun comes up.

©2005 Charles Huston (P)2008 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"An irresistible and fiendishly original take on the vampire myth....Huston has fun playing with the conventions of the genre, creating his own hip update that will appeal to fans of Quentin Tarantino and Buffy the Vampire Slayer alike." ( Publishers Weekly)

Great book! Too much foul language

If you could sum up Already Dead in three words, what would they be?

Boom! Bang! Mystery!

Who was your favorite character and why?

The detectives girlfriend. Love her living tough style

Have you listened to any of Scott Brick’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, but will listen to more if I can stand the foul language

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

No

Excellent series

It hooks you right from the start. its sexy, its suspensful, and it fits its setting perfectly. fantastic book.

Not Your Typical Mythical

This is like Capt. Mark Mcclusky works for the Vampire organization and he’s a vampire as well but living to just trying to learn how not to be a vampire. While he cleans up messes of people “infected” with the Zombie virus (not your typical zombie story). Being a vampire or a zombie is an infection (kinda).
I’ve said enough. It will all make sense and come together harmoniously so by the end you want to learn more about the characters and their lives.
I have to say that the narrator at first was a bit slow. I had to actually turn the read speed up to 1.5. It helped. Then listening to story unfold was engaging and I enjoyed listening. He made the characters come to life which in turn now makes me want the next book!
This is a good story, well read. I highly recommend!!

Great book, narrator almost great

I love the concept of Joe’s condition being a virus. Of course, this way of viewing vampires is so overdone by now, but this was the first book I read where vampirism is a medical condition. And Charlie Huston has created the perfect character to tell it this way. The dialogue is sharp and as real as a back alley knife fight. I read this series, this book first, and my only complaint is that I heard Joe as a more sympathetic character in my head—hardened for sure but still possessing more reluctance to be what he is and more heart than I got from this narrator. Still, he grew on me. All in all a fantastic book. Bravo, Charlie Huston! Where have you gone?

Great alternative to Twilight

I first read this book in 2007-2008. At the time the Twilight books were out and all the ladies in school was talking about it and quite frankly the vampires in those books really don't classify as what I've known a vampire to be.

In this story which actually spans five books, Vampirism is looked at as more of a sickness ("Vampyre" , "Vyrus") than as the phenomenon or curse that classical vampire stories portray it to be. The Narrator who is Joe Pitt, the main character does a good job explaining this and how it applies to to his world and those around him ("infected" , "uninfected"). Vampirism is a central plot point in this series, how the characters deal with being vampires, politics between "Vampyre" Clans, blood etc.

Our MC, Joe Pitt is a vampire in modern day New York City (Well circa 2005 NYC). He doesn't work a regular 9-5 job, he earns his money by taking care of problems for the vampire clans. Events lead him to being tasked with tracking down the heiress to a successful biotechnology company and that's where the mystery and detective work come into play.

There is a vast array of characters and factions in this story and as the reader, you'll want to pay attention to them all. You get a great idea very quickly of just "Who's who?" in this book.

The action is solid all the way through this story. If you're into it, you as the reader can really place yourself into Joe Pitts situations and imagine them. See events as they unfold. The breaks in the action are pleasant, usually Joe talking to someone or monologing trying to figure out the mystery or just describing what's going on at the moment. With noir detective style stories, for them to be good, I've gotta see myself in the moments, being able to imagine what's going on and the main character's thoughts are. This story does a damn good job at that for me plus it helps keep me invested in wanting to solve the mystery (Where is the girl??)

I personally own the books and just had to get the audio for all 5 books. With the books, the first few pages are actually illustrated maps of Manhattan and how territory is divided up amongst the clans. The illustrations add an extra understanding that people listening to audio will initially lack, but the story does a great enough job at talking territorial borders that those maps really aren't needed to understand just how much territory each of these clans have. I remember this story in particular being a page turner I just couldn't put it down.

I tried not to talk about plot details too much because this story and eventually the whole series is driven by an intriguing plot surrounding Vampirism. Each book is one detective case that has their own plots within each book that u fold around Joe Pitt. There are callbacks to the case presented in this book in the other four books. The stories, cases, plots all intertwine in some way or another with Vampirism and that's is ultimately what connects these stories. I tried not to spoil too much. if you the reader are needing a different story, check out Already Dead by Charlie Huston. You won't regret it.

Finally a Non Girly Vampire Story!

So many of the Vampire stories out there are romantic trash. For the non romanticist this story delivers. Lot's of action and a plausible Vampire world.

Scott Brick (Narrator) does an especially good job of narrating this story.

I couldn't put it down and found it unpredictable and engrossing.

Accents

So I have actually read this book in the real, decided to go ahead and listen to it now that I have audible and it's a great story good characters very nor detective. Only problem I had is the voice actors accent he used for every single different character was exactly the same hand hard to keep track of.

Vampires Vs Zombies

What other book might you compare Already Dead to and why?

Billibub Baddings and the Case of the Singing Sword.

Any additional comments?

The reader really makes the book. Don’t get me wrong it was well written and interesting and I don’t think I have ever seen the “hero” get beat up so much in a story. I enjoyed the internal conflict of the main character.

Dark urban fantasy done well

I found this story years ago and came back to find the audiobook. It's a little dated but some of those edges seem even sharper for being made years ago. Somethings never change it seems.

The BEST vampire book/series ever written!

Would you listen to Already Dead again? Why?

I have listened to this book (and the other 4 in the series) 4 different times in the past several years. If I don't have anything else interesting to listen to or am between audiobooks, Joe Pitt is my "go-to".

What other book might you compare Already Dead to and why?

No other book (vampire or non-vampire) captures the grittiness and toughness of Joe Pitt. Only "Marv" (the role played by Mickey Rouke) of the Sin City movie comes close to protraying the "badassedness" and the mindset of Joe Pitt.

Any additional comments?

Scott Brick's performance is absolutely perfect. There is no other audio performance/narration that compares to this "Movie of the Mind" experience. The first 28 mins of the the last book ("My Dead Body") is, without a doubt, THE BEST AUDIO PERFORMANCE ON AUDIBLE. This series made me a life-long fan of both Charlie Huston and Scott Brick.