The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

by Charlie Huston

Book Overview

With his teaching career derailed by tragedy and his slacker days numbered, Webster Fillmore Goodhue makes an unlikely move and joins Clean Team, charged with tidying up L.A.'s grisly crime scenes.... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345501128
• ISBN13: 9780345501127
• Release Date: December 2009
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.2" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

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Loved, loved, loved this book. The protagonist is a not-so-lovable loser who mooches off his tattoo artist friend until forced to get a job. He joins a local company as a crime scene cleaner, which leads to his involvement in a mystery plot. The most memorable thing was definitely the dialogue and characters, and I am definitely looking for more books by this author! This book had the makings of the first in a series and I hope that that is what it is.

Slacker Extraordinaire

Web Goodhew is a slacker extraordinaire who lazes his days away in his friend's tattoo parlor, but sadly, he likes to eat so he takes a job cleaning up after major traumas. You know, murder, suicides and the like. He gets to cleans blood and brains off walls and carpets and he does it in a wisecracking style that would put you best Fifties private eye to shame. On a Malibu cleanup job he meets the victims daughter, Solidad Nye and though he's been warned by his boss not to get involved with the clients or their families, he can't help himself and it's not long before Web is caught up in a web if lies and deceit, crime and passion that will take him into the belly of L.A. underworld. I guess that's what happens with you fall head over heals for for a dame you met while cleaning up her father's messy gore. This is pulp fiction taken to a whole new level. Noir it is. Great it is too. Simply extraordinary this book about a slacker extraordinaire is. If you miss this book, you'll be missing a treat.

A Rocking Good Thriller with Lotsa Laughs

Web Goodhue was an elementary school teacher, but a class trip gone horrible wrong turned him into the world's greatest slacker. A guy who sponges of his tattoo artist pal and pot growing mom. A guy who sleeps most of the day away. Also a guy with a smart mouth which tends to get him in a gang of trouble. He's been sponging for sometime when the book opens and one can only do that for so long, so he's forced to find gainful employment with Clean Team, a company that goes out and cleans up after murders, suicides and any other gross act you can imagine. Strangely enough Web isn't grossed out by the work. His first assignment is cleaning up after a man who saved everything his body had secreted for a very long time. The place reeked, but somehow Web did the job, got hooked on the work. Then one day, while he's cleaning a suicide's brains up, the dead man's hot daughter asks Web to help her out with a cleanup job of her own, one she wants done on the sly. Web shoulda said no, but he didn't. This is a rocking good thriller with lotsa laughs. In these pages you'll find bodies, a kidnapping, stolen stuff, crooks, killing and characters you're going to be talking and laughing about for a long time to come. Especially wise cracking, slacking Webster Fillmore Goodhue. He is a character for the ages. Love him or hate him, but you're not gonna forget him. Reviewed by Vesta Irene

A Strange and Very Enjoyable Read

This really is a great story. Carl Hiiasen funny and Richard Laymon gross. Blood, guts, feces, brains, you'll get more than your share here. You'll want to avert your eyes from the pages even as you're biting back a laugh. I don't know how Charlie Huston came up with these characters, situations and scenes, I can only imagine he had pharmaceutical help or maybe he's just got a twisted mind. Twisted in a good way, mind you, because he certainly has turned out a story I couldn't put down, even though I don't think I really ever figured out where it was going until I got there, but I really, really enjoyed myself along the way.

Imagine Hunter Thompson writing Fiction on Acid

Webster "Web" Fillmore Goodhue is the ultimate wiseass slacker. He's got a mouth that won't quit, an aversion to busses, second only to his aversion to work. However, like all of us, he has to eat. So he winds up working for a guy named Po Sin who runs an organization called Clean Team. These are the guys who clean up those motel and hotel rooms, garages and bedrooms and anyplace else someone might have blown their brains out or slashed their wrists in. It's a messy job, but someone's gotta do it. Then one day he meets a gorgeous gal named Soledad, who wants him to do a little of his special kind of cleaning up off the books. No paperwork, no police. He shouldn't, but she's beautiful. Oh what trouble Web is in for, but you won't be in any as you sift though this standalone thriller at the speed of laughter. This is one funny story about a guy who you'll hate to love and love to hate. This is every bit as good as Hunter Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. In fact, imagine Hunter Thompson writing fiction on acid and you'll get a good idea of the wild ride you're in for here. Reviewed by Stephanie Sane