Catchpenny

A Novel

By: Charlie Huston

Narrated by: Pete Cross

A thief who can travel through mirrors, a video game that threatens to spill out of the virtual world, a doomsday cult on a collision course with destiny, and a missing teenager at the center of it all. With the world on the brink of every kind of apocalypse, humanity needs a hero. What it gets is Sid Catchpenny.

"I absolutely loved it. Catchpenny is a brilliant book, full of heart and the language is pitch-perfect. If Elmore Leonard had ever written a fantasy novel, this would be it.”—Stephen King

Sidney Catchpenny has had a bad run. Laid low by a years-long bout of debilitating depression, he’s all but squandered his reputation as one of the most uniquely talented thieves in LA. There aren’t many who can do what Sid does. He’s a sly, a special kind of crook with the uncanny ability to move through mirrors. And the spoils he’s after are equally unusual. Forget jewels and cold cash—Sid steals curiosities—items imbued with powerful mojo, a magical essence gleaned from the accumulated emotion that seeps into interesting, though often banal objects. That spot on the carpet where your old dog used to lay at your feet? The passed-down family heirloom nobody wants but everybody refuses to throw away? These curiosities are full of mojo, which is both the currency of the criminal underground and the secret source of magic in the world.

When a friend from Sid’s past comes looking for his help with an important client, and the chance to pay off old debts presents itself, Sid seizes the opportunity … as best he can. But the case he stumbles into is more complicated than it seems, and it portends a seismic shift in the world, one that will leave no one untouched. As the fog of his depression begins to lift, Sid sees connections everywhere he looks, and the once disparate threads of the case—a missing teenage girl, an entire bedroom saturated with mojo, and Sid’s own long-dead wife—begin to coalesce.

©2024 Charlie Huston (P)2024 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"I absolutely loved it. Catchpenny is a brilliant book, full of heart and the language is pitch-perfect. If Elmore Leonard had ever written a fantasy novel, this would be it.”—Stephen King

“A supernatural thriller set in a mystically bent Los Angeles of dark enchantment, looking-glass larceny, and apocalyptic gaming. . . . A hallucinatory adventure rife with the kind of extreme violence, false leads, and hairbreadth escapes you find in thrillers only amped up with 1980s-style rock lyrics, video game arcana, and a mysterious force dubbed ‘mojo.’ . . . Huston’s writing packs a rock band’s hard-driving propulsion along with an electric guitar’s plaintive lyricism. . . . If mojo is another word for magic, then this novel’s loaded with it.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Dark, soulful, laconic—like the very best of Tim Powers and Jim Thompson, thrown together in an L.A. dive bar after-hours. This is smart fantasy for our times, resonant and real, a love letter to youth and dreams and a biting critique of what the modern world is doing to both. Join down-at-heel, ruined dreamer Sidney Catchpenny and his ghosts on a turbo-charged narrative ride through the mean streets of a weirdly tilted noir, and find out what it means, once more, to care. Spread the word: Charlie Huston is back, and it’s a triumphant return. Until I read Catchpenny, I never realized how much I’d missed his voice.”—Richard K. Morgan, award-winning author of Altered Carbon

Awesome

Had a blast listening. It was recommended to me and I'm glad it was. Great neo-noir vibe.

If You Want to Destroy My Sweater...

Pull this thread as I walk away,
I'm so glad we're all back together and stuff. This is great, man.
Boy, have I read a great deal of of Mr. Huston's writing: From the the wonderfully dirty night time streets of New York in the Joe Pitt (Vampire/PI/Fixer) series, to the best crime trilogy this side of Don Winslow with his Henry Thompson books. Then there's his incomparable stand alone novels. Crime noir (regular or fantastical) is what he does best. He's also written some darn fine (and darn fun) comics. Charlie Huston, Andrew Vachss (Rest In Peace, Brother), Joe R Lansdale, Don Winslow, and Duane Swierczynski launched me into this many faceted genre and helped get me through my late teens and Twenties. Thanks!!
Huston writes great characters and they all have some rock and roll in their soul. Safe to say, this is no exception. With Sidney Catchpenny, he's done it again. Creating possibly the best character in his entire oeuvre: The Song in Catchpenny's soul that barely holds him together on his best days... which are coming more and more infrequently, his need to be involved and his dislike of actually being involved, his genuine concern for others vs. his need to look out for number one, his ability to draw the wrong conclusion sometimes, and maybe most of all the lies he tells himself to just to get by... Well, they all make for another fantastic character! Maybe the best (I'll certainly be thinking on it). Mix in some magic, mayhem, dirty fighting/tricks, betrayals, clever writing and some spooky goings on, and you've got an exciting, funny, beautiful, and, ultimately, moving novel on your hands!
Pete Cross is perfect for this as well. Can't say enough good things about his narration. Really brought the novel to life.

Aaaand yeah... trigger warning for self harm. Not a sentence I'm accustomed to writing, but I wouldn't want anyone taken out of the story by it, either,