The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

A twisting terrific tale of betrayal

Web Goodhue burned out as an inner city elementary school teacher until he finally quit. Although still suffering from what the shrinks call post-traumatic stress disorder, the former Los Angeles teacher obtains work as a member of a crime scene cleanup team. He finds cleaning away the remains of dead people easier on his brain than teaching.

He and his crew clean up a particular nasty job in Malibu where the suicide splattered blood and guts are everywhere. Soon afterward, the dead man¿s daughter Soledad calls him to ask if he would like to make some under the table loot cleaning up a mess she and her hooligan half-brother need serendipitously performed by a professional. Web agrees although he knows better than to do an unauthorized side job, but Soledad¿s voice and later her beautiful body has the mentally fatigued man hypnotized with a need to live for the first time since teaching fatigued him to the breaking point. He will soon find himself wishing he stayed in the classroom as a burned out husk.

With a nod to crime scene cleaner writers like Wendy Roberts (see A Ghost Dusters), but more a darker Noir than most, Charlie Huston provides a twisting terrific tale of betrayal. Fascinatingly, the action is muted as the players discuss what they desire and what happened. This passive approach works as the reader increasingly anticipates doom; enhancing the Noir feel to the plot. THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH is a unique refreshing look at crime especially those who clean up the mess afterward while asking who cleans up the cleaner¿s mess.

Harriet Klausner

2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

The modern love child of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett

This is the 9th Huston novel I've read and it does not disappoint. His books are hard as nails, tough as old boots, and the constant violence makes you imagine being shelled on the streets of Lebanon in the 70s. Yet somehow all of his stories are incredibly bracing, romantic in their own way, and make you feel a little warm and fuzzy at the end. How does he do it?

I figure he is the modern day love child of my favorite dead noir authors Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler.

His heroes would steal a crutch from a cripple if necessary, like the Hammett's Continental Op in "The Big Knockover" yet sacrifice everything for a woman, as Chandler's Marlowe does over and over.

Anyway, it's magic.

So that's all I can say without going into a bunch of specifics and giving away the plot of The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

train wreck

this book was like a train wreck that i couldn't take my eyes off of. i loved the first person narrative and have already reccomended to friends and co-workers. it was very original.

1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

A macabre delight

Characters and schemes to rival Elmore Leonard (an almond heist!?) keep this novel fresh from beginning to end. HBO just passed on a series based on this book, but I hope we see a print follow-up someday soon.

Good plot, terrible writing

I liked the story he but the writing style left nothing to be desire.

Erasing All Signs Of Readability?

My kudos to those who could finish this book. The writing style totally aggravated me. Really, why bother if the reader can't read it? I gave it three stars just because I didn't finish it- perhaps I missed the part where it got better.

0 out of 2 people found this review helpful.

STUD!

Simply stated - - - one of the best books that I've ever read!!! Charlie Huston is an unrecognized literary genius. You must give this read some time, it does start out a little slow, but gains momentum all the way through.

0 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

total thumbs down

I heard an hour of this book on CD. My 14 year old granddaughter wanted it. It is the filthiest book I have ever come in contact with. It went in the trash. My granddaughter and I had a good talk about it.

I gave this book one star only to get to comment on it. It is below the star rating.

0 out of 7 people found this review helpful.

Very Difficult Writing Style

I enjoyed the first hundred pages or so of this book and then the writing style just got too unmanageable for me to enjoy the rest of the book. Web is a deadbeat roommate who is told by his roommate to get a job to pay him back for a broken phone. Web starts working for a "clean-up" service that cleans premises after someone dies at those premises. He works with an unsavory character named Gabe. It was pretty interesting at this point and we get to meet Web's mysterious father enters the scene with advice to read a good book starting with Anna Karenina. Then the book starts to lose it. A woman named Soledad who Web joked with while cleaning the remains of her father, calls him up and gets him involved in something shady. Also, his partner Gabe starts forcing Web to do illegal activities. This is the point where the plot got annoying and the writing style just got to me. It took immense concentration and the need to re-read sections to figure out who is talking and what is happening.

The author uses a "hyphen" method to quote someone talking without letting you know who is talking and does not really differentiate narrative from character thoughts. This really made it quite difficult to give the book higher marks.

A masterpiece

With echos of "A Confederacy of Dunces", Charlie Huston populates this dark and thrilling novel with solid characters and dramatic flourishes. All in all an excellent novel that should win both high praise and awards.

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