The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

Here's a crime novel which really isn't about crime--it's about character. Namely, the character Webster Fillmore Goodhue. at the start of Charlie Huston's novel The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, Web is a slacker, sharing an apartment with his childhood friend, a tattoo artist. He does nothing but sleep and read horror movie magazines, and act like a dick.

It seem that Web used to be a teacher, and when we learn that he has an abnormal aversion to riding buses, it becomes gradually clearer that he was involved in a traumatic incident on a school bus. In fact, his antisocial, extremely sarcastic behavior stems from post-traumatic stress disorder, but he strains the sympathy of everyone around him. Including the reader.

Web eventually takes a job with a crime scene clean-up crew, and almost immediately gets involved with two different entanglements: a turf war involving a rival clean-up company, and then he gets drawn in by a femme fatale, who he meets while cleaning up the remains of her father, who has shot himself to death.

The biggest selling point of this book is the character of Web and his at times Promethean dialogue. He has a hard time keeping his mouth shut, and gets beaten up several times during the course of the action (and it's not always his fault). I knew I was in for a good time early on after reading this, after someone has called him an asshole: "Honestly, in most circumstances, in any given room on any given day, I'd say, 'Yeah, I'm the asshole here.' But in this particular scenario, and I know we just met and all, but in this room here?" I pointed at him. "I'm more than willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that you're the asshole."

The sterling dialogue masks that there isn't much of a story here. It's really all about Web redeeming himself and learning to deal with his grief--a story involving almond smuggling truck drivers seems kind of lame. It's what happens in-between, especially when he deals with the asshole described above, a would-be movie producer called Jaime, that the prose sings. There are also some lovely descriptions of the Los Angeles area, particular the port, and a couple of strong sections involving Web's dad, a burned out old screenwriter.

At times I felt a little lost during the book, as transitions were eased over, and I could never get used to the way dialogue was introduced by em dashes instead of quotation marks. What can I say--I'm a copy editor. Good book, though.