The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death by Charlie Huston; Unabridged MP3 Audio Book; Narrator Paul Michael Garcia

Winner of the Publishers Weekly Listen Up Award 2009

Webster Filmore Goodhue has found temporary work as one of the mop-up crew for the Los Angeles County crime division. In other words, he cleans up grisly crime scenes for the cops. When the daughter of a recent Malibu suicide victim asks for his help cleaning up after her brother has gotten into a little trouble, every cell in Web’s brain is telling him to turn her down. But she’s very attractive, and before he knows it, he’s well on his way to getting his face kicked in, facing down some gun-toting L.A. cowboys, and hanging on for dear life. And that’s only the beginning.

“The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death is [Huston's] almost entirely successful leap into crime fiction’s mainstream…a tart, quick-witted, sharply funny trip…The vivid hilarity of Mr. Huston’s hippies manqué and stumblebum, Hollywood-obsessed tough guys is this book’s hallmark…Scorchingly good dialogue and banner-worthy chapter headings…And Mr. Huston, whose own brain matter is as much on display as the stuff that gets spattered here, finally delivers a book that anyone can admire. No strong stomach required.”—Janet Maslin, New York Times

“[A] runaway freight that feels like a combination of William Burroughs and James Ellroy…Fiercely original.”—Stephen King

“Charlie Huston has for several years been one of the best-kept secrets in American fiction; this novel might move him into the mainstream.”—Washington Post

“Shockingly original…The outlandish characters are brazen originals, and the dialogue is the roar of a death-defying talent.”—Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

“Noir master Huston should win himself a whole new audience with this bizarre and utterly grotesque stand-alone, told mostly through dialogue that highlights the author’s uncanny ear for the spoken word…This one should appeal to Chuck Palahniuk fans as well as hard-boiled crime readers.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Huston's darkly comic slice of Southern California noir is filled with distinctive characters that leap from the page and, thanks to Paul Michael Garcia's remarkable versatility, speak in equally arresting voices…Just as Huston makes the outwardly obnoxious and brutally snarky protagonist sympathetic, Garcia layers self-doubt, sensitivity and intelligence beneath the arrogance and an overriding humanity that Web attempts to mask with his misanthropic (often very funny) remarks. The other characters are equally well matched vocally: Web's father speaks with the boozy rasp of a self-loathing alcoholic; Po Sin, the massive boss of the Clean Team, has a deep and rumbling delivery; and femme fatale Solidad tries to hide her naïveté behind hard-boiled banter. Throw in a gallery of motor-mouth crazies, flat-voiced killers and Web's amazingly tolerant best friend, Chev, and you have a thrilling and smartly enacted audio package.”—Publishers Weekly (Audio Review)

“Reader Paul Michael Garcia manages an astonishing array of vocal pitches—from bass male to alto female. More important, he inhabits this novel’s smart-mouthed, emotionally scarred narrator, Web, a former elementary school teacher who takes a job scrubbing up after messy deaths and, consequently, becomes entangled with various shady entrepreneurs with very short tempers.”—AudioFile

“Huston's novels are among the most imaginative and compelling in the mystery and thriller genres.”—Pittsburgh Tribune

Charlie Huston is the bestselling author of The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death; The Shotgun Rule; The Henry Thompson Trilogy which includes the Edgar Award-nominated Six Bad Things, and The Joe Pitt Casebooks. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, the actress Virginia Louise Smith.