charlie huston writes

charlie huston writes. novels, movies, TV, comic books, podcasts. 13 of their novels have been published, including 2024's CATCHPENNY. their film adaptation of their first book, CAUGHT STEALING, directed by Darren Aronofsky and starring Austin Butler, will be exclusively in theaters on August 29th. their spec TV pilot, ARCADIA, which their daughter calls HOT CRIMINAL ISLAND, is being packaged by Tomorrow Studios. Jennifer Reeder is attached to direct their next screenplay, HOW TO KILL A DEAD BODY.

huston's books are mostly about people who find themselves in too deep with stolen money or drugs or vampires or spies or the unknowable dangers of the future. they like that kind of stuff. their TV work is similar. huston has developed shows about cleaning up after dead bodies and penal colonies in space and more vampires and dirty cops for HBO, FX, Max, Sony, and FOX.

the rumors about huston? something about them running medical supplies to separatists and how they hid the stuff under bottles of slivovitz wrapped in straw so the border guards would take the plum brandy and never looked deeper? that and the other rumor about a ritual gone wrong. something like they tried to bind an efrieeti to the motor of a 69 Cougar to make a supernatural super charger, but then they mispronounced the third to last syllable of the incantation and got turned into a yellow house finch, and they'll stay that way until they achieves true self knowledge and open their third eye? both of those rumors may seem like plausible stories to people who know charlie, but they are largely false. another rumor says charlie just wandered off with a notebook and a ballpoint pen and an old paperback with a creased spine. they had a sandwich and some potato chips and a can of 7-Up. said they'd be home later. that one has a lot of truth in it.

"you can find things if you look for them," someone said they said. "you can find things. look for them," someone said they said. someone. said they said. "find things, someone." they said, "someone find things."

Hi, I'm Charlie Huston. I do sometimes refer to myself in the third person, but only when I feel alienated from myself. It's not you, it's me.
Okay then.

Timewarp

I Did A Video Interview WIth Robert Swartwood

Me talking with Robert Swartwood about my books and stuff.

I Did An Interview for The Mystery Tribune

It's an interview!

I Had a Long Chat With My Old Pal Rick Kleffel

I talk to Rick Kleffel about CATCHPENNY and you can listen to it.

Of Lions and Hounds and Cobras, Kate and Sinéad, My Daughter and Me

In the spring of 2022 I was sitting on the couch with my daughter Clementine when Stranger Things season 4 ruined the novel I’d been working on for over ten years.

My Friend Richard Sterling Streeter Wrote a Song Around 38 Years Ago and Let Me Put it in My New Book

The song is called Feel Like Dyin' and it is a part of the soundtrack of my life.

I Recorded a Podcast with The Functional Nerds

Me talking about Catchpenny and the Caught Stealing movie and things that are smelly and learning guitar.

I Wrote an Essay for CrimeReads

Me talking about writing and drinking and drinking and writing. That seems to be my beat these days.

Catchpenny Playlist

Music plays a huge rule in CATCHPENNY. Here's a link to a Spotify playlist...

I'm Just Thinking About What My Life Was Like Two Years Ago

My new book, CATCHPENNY, is going to publish in less than 48 hours. It represents a conscious effort on my part to embrace emotion and hope. I wrote most of it while I was depressed, suffering panic attacks on the reg, and drinking. As of the current moment, I am none of the above.

Caught Stealing is Gonna be a Movie and I'm Writing it

There's a longer story to tell, but that's the basics. CAUGHT STEALING the movie is a thing. Darren Aronofsy is directing, Austin Butler is starring as Hank. I'll add details as I may. Here's the press release as per Deadline.

What is a Catchpenny Anyway?3.18.24

It is easily the most shameless book I have written. The book that most wants to please and entertain, and the book in which I most shamelessly let myself write exactly what I wanted without being embarrassed.

Reach out and say hi. I like that kind of thing.

Caught Stealing
The first book they wrote. Starts the story of Hank Thompson. An okay guy who ends up between some desperate people and four million $$$.
Go buy a book at a corporate publisher's website where retailers are aggregated for your consumer ease and pleasure.
Six Bad Things
Hank Thompson's story continues with more desperate people. Mexico, Las Vegas. Bad choices. Dire consequences. Some of it is very funny. The second book they wrote.
Go buy a book at a corporate publisher's website where retailers are aggregated for your consumer ease and pleasure.
A Dangerous Man
The end of the Hank Thompson Trilogy. Back to New York for Hank. Where it all began. The fourth book they wrote. They liked to break people's hearts a little because that's what they liked at the end of a book. Not a spoiler, but you get the idea. Still, some of it is really funny.
Go buy a book at a corporate publisher's website where retailers are aggregated for your consumer ease and pleasure.
The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death
Guy stumbles into being a crime scene cleaner and gets in the middle of murder, human trafficking, and a turf war. Also his family is a mess and he gets a chance to clean that up, too. More funny than sad. Maybe the sixth or seventh book they wrote? They made a pilot for HBO with Mahershala Ali and Ben Whishaw and Clayne Crawford, and Alan Ball. How nuts is that?
Go buy a book at a corporate publisher's website where retailers are aggregated for your consumer ease and pleasure.
The Shotgun Rule
A book about where they grew up and what some of that was like. Some kids break into a house and steal some drugs and shit gets bad.
Go buy a book at a corporate publisher's website where retailers are aggregated for your consumer ease and pleasure.
Sleepless
An undercover cop tries to expose a global conspiracy in the middle of a plague of sleeplessness that may signal the end of human civilization. The eleventh book they wrote. Not as big a bummer as it sounds.
Go buy a book at a corporate publisher's website where retailers are aggregated for your consumer ease and pleasure.
Skinner
Agoraphobic disaster roboticist teams up with mercenary who was raised in a Skinner box so they can find out who disrupted the US energy grid and might be plotting to detonate a nuclear bomb in Mumbai. The twelfth book they wrote. An international thriller filtered through Joan Didion and Don Delillo. You probably already know if it's your kind of thing right there.
Go buy a book at a corporate publisher's website where retailers are aggregated for your consumer ease and pleasure.
Already Dead
The first of the five Joe Pitt Casebooks. Let's not mess around. Contemporary vampire noir. Hardboiled, hyper bloody, melancholy fun. This was the third book they wrote. Over the top entertainment. Not for the squeamish, maybe. This is the South Korean cover, by the way.
Go buy a book at a corporate publisher's website where retailers are aggregated for your consumer ease and pleasure.
No Dominon
The second Joe Pitt. More noir, more vampire clans in New York, more blood. The fourth or fifth book they wrote.
Go buy a book at a corporate publisher's website where retailers are aggregated for your consumer ease and pleasure.
Half the Blood of Brooklyn
Third Joe Pitt. Vampires! Blood! Crime! Brooklyn! A clan of vampire freaks on Coney Island. It's like that. Seventh or eighth book they wrote? It gets blurry because they alternated writing these with writing stand alone novels. Busy few years there.
Go buy a book at a corporate publisher's website where retailers are aggregated for your consumer ease and pleasure.
Every Last Drop
The fourth Joe Pitt book. These are serialized, by the way. You can read them in any order and figure it out, but it is a single five volume storyline. This was the eighth or ninth book they wrote. Maybe the last one they started and finished while living in New York. Strange days living and writing in an apartment with an elementary school playground outside the window. They learned a lot about writing with distractions. A new kind of self-discipline.
Go buy a book at a corporate publisher's website where retailers are aggregated for your consumer ease and pleasure.
My Dead Body
The fifth and final Joe Pitt book. The five book story is really about a selfish guy full of self-loathing learning how to give a shit about himself and other people. And he's a vampire detective. Everything goes haywire in this one. It was the tenth book they wrote. Hard to write about New York from California, but they figured it out. Later, they wrote a tv pilot based on Joe Pitt that hasn't been made. It's very good.
Go buy a book at a corporate publisher's website where retailers are aggregated for your consumer ease and pleasure.

charlie huston writes

off the track

CAUGHT STEALING TRAILER

CATCHPENNY

signs

Timewarp

I Did A Video Interview WIth Robert Swartwood

I Did An Interview for The Mystery Tribune

I Had a Long Chat With My Old Pal Rick Kleffel

Of Lions and Hounds and Cobras, Kate and Sinéad, My Daughter and Me

My Friend Richard Sterling Streeter Wrote a Song Around 38 Years Ago and Let Me Put it in My New Book

I Recorded a Podcast with The Functional Nerds

I Wrote an Essay for CrimeReads

Catchpenny Playlist

I'm Just Thinking About What My Life Was Like Two Years Ago

Caught Stealing is Gonna be a Movie and I'm Writing it

What is a Catchpenny Anyway?3.18.24

write me

buy books

Caught Stealing

Six Bad Things

A Dangerous Man

The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

The Shotgun Rule

Sleepless

Skinner

Already Dead

No Dominon

Half the Blood of Brooklyn

Every Last Drop

My Dead Body