A Dangerous Man
by Charlie Huston
Published by Ballantine (September 19, 2006 Release)
Click on book
cover to order
at Amazon.com
Reviewed by: Anne-Gigi Chan
This is the conclusion of the Henry Thompson Trilogy. Thompson is now a strung-out hitman in Las Vegas who was unwilling to get himself out of the rut and unable to do his job.
Thompson's ability to perform was quickly deteriorating, but he was given a chance to redeem himself when his Russian Mafia boss assigned him to be the bodyguard for an up-and-coming baseball star. This new job took Thompson back to New York City, where his series of misadventures first started in Caught Stealing. Faced with more challenges that threaten his life and those of his loved ones, Thompson was forced to make a final decision that would end his misery once and for all.
Even though this was part of a trilogy, the author did a fairly decent job summarizing events leading up to the current situation in a brief and precise manner without giving away too much of the previous stories.
For someone who has not read the last two books, there was enough information for me to follow what was happening. However, I still felt that I was missing out because I did not know exactly how Thompson's life evolved into what it was in this book. Perhaps because of that, I found it very difficult to sympathize with him, which made reading this book a fairly frustrating experience. The writing was good enough to keep me interested but the ending was quite predictable.
Armchair Interviews: We recommend anyone interested in the story to read the first two volumes as reading this book independently was not a very rewarding experience.