In Six Bad Things we saw Hank develop the characteristics required to be a hired gun and judging by the title of this the final part of the Hank Thompson trilogy, Hank really is “A Dangerous Man”.
As Hank says himself:
There are reasons why people do the things they do. You have to have a reason, otherwise you couldn’t do them
This is for you Mom and Dad. This is for you.
So what exactly is Hank doing?
He’s a hitman for a Russian mob boss, quietly going about his business in Las Vegas. His days revolve around a concoction of narcotics, scummy bars and generally making a mess of people. But like the previous novels, Hank gets a change of scenery and in ‘A Dangerous Man’ Hank is sent back to New York, where his troubles start to spiral out of control once more.
Is there a happy ending? Well only you can be judge of that, and to be frank, there can be no follow up books.
I thoroughly enjoyed this series and I’d recommend you read them back to back if possible.
A Dangerous Man is available to read (below) and download free on Scribd.com
Visit Charlie Huston’s website or follow him on twitter.
Hank’s back in this Charlie Huston’s second novel and it’s time for Hank to come home.
It turns out that the luck I described in my post about “Caught Stealing” was not luck after all. Hank has a talent and that is not just avoiding getting killed, but he has developed into a master manipulator of circumstance and enjoys that rare ability to survive while all those around him are getting themselves killed.
Hank has moved on with his life and is happy living the quiet life in Mexico but that all changes when a backpacker comes to town and befriends hank.
Huston has the uncanny knack of being able to tell stories within stories, which enables sub-plots to develop nicely. In Six Bad Things, Hank learns a valuable life lesson (or two or three!) and makes a life changing decision when he discovers that his love for his parents will change him forever.
Six Bad Things is available to read (below) and download free on Scribd.com
Visit Charlie Huston’s website or follow him on twitter.
This was the first Charlie Huston novel I read and I have since read seven more which should indicate how compelling (to me) his books are. Not for the faint hearted, Huston has a brash style that resembles a (good) Tarantino movie. Profanity and violence are frequent players in all of Huston’s work and ‘Caught Stealing’ drops the reader straight into the action and immediately leaves you wanting more.
The book is centred around the character Hank Thompson, who was a promising high school baseball player with a big future in the game, that was until he broke his leg. After that things took a turn for the worse, more from bad judgement and luck than anything else, all of which makes for better reading. Let’s face it, no one wants to read about the guy who almost made it, only to end up working the 9-5 and conforming to societies preset values.
So after Hank agrees to look after his neighbour’s cat, his life spirals into a series of extreme drama and the inevitable twists lead you to like a character that you will initially label as a loser. Without giving too much away, the story revolves around the cat, his ability to escape bad situations and how he ends up making it across the Mexican border with the cat and a bag load of money.