For the Dogs: A Novel [Hardcover]

Kevin Wignall (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 29, 2004

Ella is young, bereaved, and in danger.
Lucas is ruthless, brutal, and cold.

Think again.

Ella is bitter, determined, and dangerous.
Lucas is vulnerable and lovelorn.

Ella Hatto is on vacation in Italy with her boyfriend.
It's a beautiful summer evening in a small Tuscan town, and her life is all about the things she doesn't know.
She doesn't know her family is dead.
She doesn't know she's being watched, or that she's in danger.
She doesn't know how rich she is or the murky truth of where that money came from.
She doesn't know that a man is about to cross the street, ending her old life forever.

When Lucas, a retired contract killer, agrees to help her avenge her family's death, Ella is drawn into a world she cannot control, a world from which Lucas wants only to escape.

For the Dogs is a stunning thriller in which avenging the past becomes a deadly business that never ends.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this slim, fast-paced page-turner, Wignall returns to one of the themes of his well-received first novel, People Die—the sympathetic hit man who has, if not exactly a conscience, extended internal considerations of the moral implications of his trade. Stephen Lucas, a recently retired, emotionally stunted hit man, emerges from his Swiss hideaway as a favor to old friend Londoner Mark Hatto, who hires Lucas to surreptitiously guard his daughter, bright, extroverted Ella, while she's vacationing in Italy with her boyfriend. After Ella's entire family is murdered, Lucas foils several serious attempts on Ella's life, and the two of them form an odd, almost familial relationship. The boyfriend soon drops out of the picture as the hit man reluctantly helps Ella exact revenge on those who killed her family. There's plenty of action, but it's the twisting, turning, complicated relationship between Ella and Lucas that forms the core of this compelling novel. Most popular genre writers allow and even encourage the category elements—action, adventure, suspense—to subsume the literary ones, but Wignall concentrates instead on the questions of character and motivation that make for a deeper reading experience. The names le Carré, Simenon and recent British mystery author Mark Billingham come to mind, making this a blend of old and new masters wrapped up in an original, finely hewn effort.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

This deliciously nasty little thriller considers what might happen if the young innocent under a hitman's protection turned out not to be so innocent after all. The contract killer in question, Stephen Lucas, comes out of retirement to watch over Ella Hatto, an English college student on holiday with her beau. As a favor to Ella's shady businessman father, Lucas starts gunning down machine-pistol-toting maniacs all over Italy. But Ella's parents and younger brother don't enjoy such competent protection, so she's soon left with only a paternal uncle and a vast corporate empire for support. Her subsequent quest for revenge leads to a droll examination of the immoral code by which Lucas and his colleagues live--and mete out death. The novel finds its unexpected heart in the enigmatic Lucas, who is coldly professional on the job but can be downright sentimental when it comes to love. An odd role model indeed, but the type of justice Ella will secure hinges on how successful she is at striking a similar balance. Fans of Prizzi's Honor will have a blast with this one. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (June 29, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743247566
• ISBN-13: 978-0743247566
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,706,499 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

KJ Wignall was born in Belgium to English parents (his father was a soldier, stationed there at the time). His early childhood was spent as an army child, which he loved. He learned to drive a tank when he was seven, went to school in a German castle for a couple of years and lived in lots of different places. He lives in England now but still travels a lot. "Blood" is his first book for young adults.

Find out more at www.kjwignall.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Throw Yourself a Bone and Read This Remarkable Book, December 31, 2004

By 

James Clar (upstate NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: For the Dogs: A Novel (Hardcover)

"Seventeen-year-old boys die in car crashes, they die of meningitis, rare forms of cancer, suicide. Mostly, they don't die at all. They pass through the age, shedding awkwardness and anger and self-loathing on the way." But young Ben Hatto was about to die all right, the victim of a professional hit man's bullet to the forehead. And in that he was also about to join his mother and father lying in pools of still-warm blood one floor below in the kitchen and family room (respectively) of their comfortable suburban London home.

The lone remaining member of the Hatto clan, twenty-year-old Ella, is vacationing with her boyfriend in Italy. Blissfully unaware of the gruesome fate that has befallen her family, Ella is disturbed when she notices a nondescript middle-aged man watching her as she sits in a café. Before she is able to share her concern with her partner, Chris, the stranger rises from his seat and, gun in hand, moves toward her. Shots ring out in the calm of an Italian evening. Two younger men, apparently bent on doing harm to Ella, lie dead on the sidewalk. Before Ella even realizes what has happened, she and Chris have been spirited away by their shadowy guardian, a dangerous and enigmatic figure who introduces himself simply as "Lucas." Lucas, ex-assassin turned bodyguard, has been sent by Ella's father to keep watch surreptitiously on the youths as they travel. When Lucas learns what has happened to his employer he breaks the news to his charges. He fulfills his professional obligation by delivering Ella and Chris safely to the consulate in Switzerland.

So begins Kevin Wignall's powerful and evocative new novel, FOR THE DOGS. It may seem hard to believe that Wignall, author of the stunning PEOPLE DIE (2002), could manage to equal let alone surpass that debut performance, but surpass it he has. FOR THE DOGS is a book that will shock, amaze, confuse and disorient you. In prose that runs the gamut from the clinically terse to the elegiac, the author tells the story of two individuals - one, Ella, who becomes consumed with revenge and another, Lucas, who wants nothing more or less than redemption, genuine human contact and a chance to meet the daughter he has never even seen.

With intriguing, multi-dimensional characters and dialogue that is hardboiled enough to shatter your fillings yet touching enough to make you cry, FOR THE DOGS is a novel that you won't soon forget. With it, Wignall has cemented his reputation for writing literary noir of the highest caliber. Only a very few people out there today write crime novels that are this moving, this emotionally complex and which pack this kind of visceral wallop. Contrary to what you might be thinking, this isn't a "must read" title. All trite hyperbole aside, the truth is it's actually a "read it all costs" kind of book [...]

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Revenge is a deadly proposition, July 6, 2004

By 

Jennifer "Editor, EXPLETIVE DELETED" (United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: For the Dogs: A Novel (Hardcover)

A hitman enters the Hatto household and ruthlessly kills everyone within. It begins a ripple effect that will be felt half way across the world.

Ella Hatto relaxes in Italy with her boyfriend. But when she sees a stranger she's sure she's seen before, she's suddenly on guard. When this man crosses the street towards, her gun in hand, she's terrified. Shots are fired, but at two men down the street. To Ella the stranger says simply, "Come with me." And Ella's life changes forever.

Lucas is hitman out of retirement whose sole job is to get Ella safely out of Italy and into the confines of the British consulate. But something about her strikes a cord in him. He's reminded of a past he tried hard to forget, including a daughter he's never met. A daughter he's decided he's ready to meet.

Ella's life becomes a downward spiral of sadness and rage. Admonished by friends and family to get over it, she's left isolated and sick with grief. She believes there's one cure. Revenge.

Lucas agrees to help her, hoping that the death of the man that killed her family will bring her peace. A peace he seeks for himself. There is no way he can know that helping her will unleash events that will lead one of them to redemption and the other to death.

For the Dogs establishes Wignall as a modern noir writer with roots deeply immersed in the classics. His allusions to the Nibelungenlied (translated by A.T. Hatto) confirm the depths behind the plot. This in no way translates to a dry epic with a sluggish pace. There is plenty of action and his characters operate under constant threat. It is an in depth exploration of death and isolation propelled by the twin conduit of revenge and redemption. The ending will leave you breathless.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Top Notch Psychological Thriller, September 17, 2004

By 

Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: For the Dogs: A Novel (Hardcover)

Twenty year-old Ella Hatto and her boyfriend Chris are sipping their drinks and people watching in a sidewalk cafe, enjoying the last days of their vacation in Italy. Ella is distracted by the familiar face of an innocuous looking man, sitting a few tables away. She is sure she recognizes him from their stops in both Rome and Florence. Now in Montecatini, not exactly a booming tourist center, the young couple sees the stranger again. Could this be a coincidence? Suddenly the man becomes agitated, stands, stares directly at Ella, reaches under his jacket and pulls out a gun. Ella is paralyzed with fear as the gunman walks directly toward her, and turns to face the street, shielding her from passersby. She hears gunshots. Two men in the crowd fall to the pavement and a third is about to go down. While a fast-forming crowd mills around the bodies, the stranger grabs Ella's arm and orders the couple to follow him. He threatens to kill them if they don't obey. As the three drive away from the crime scene, the stranger introduces himself. "Probably an attempted kidnap," he says. "I'm Lucas. Mark Hatto, (Ella's father), asked me to watch Ella in case of something like this." Life, as the bright, innocent Ella knows it, goes downhill from this moment. Attempting to evade further "problems" until arrangements can be made to fly Ella and Chris home, they arrive in Milan where they learn horrific news concerning the Hatto family - news which will forever change Ella's life and irrevocably alter the very core of her being.

"For The Dogs" starts off with a Bang, (literally), and the momentum just doesn't slow down, not even on the last page. From the powerful, action-packed opening, the reader is hooked by this taut psychological, suspense thriller. Author Kevin Wignall's narrative moves along at a brisk pace toward climatic events that will leave you spellbound...and chilled. My favorite scenes are between Lucas and Ella. Stephen Lucas is one of the most romantic, endearing, cold-blooded contract killers I have met in fiction. He is quite the literary maven, and his love of books is a trait he shares with Ella. Lucas is reading "The Nibelungenlied" when they meet; Ella is into Jane Austen's "Persuasion." The author did not choose these book at random. "For The Dogs" has something of both the German epic and the English novel in its storyline. The unlikely pair of Lucas and Ella, solitary hit-man and extroverted college girl, form an intense, unusual bond based on their own individual needs and fantasies. She gets a glimpse of his world and wants in. He is trying to get out. He seeks redemption. She is driven by an obsessive need for justice and revenge.

The book's secondary characters are interesting and quirky, but this story really belongs to Ella and Lucas. The author develops their characters beautifully, and explores their deep and dark sides, as well as classically romantic elements.

This is a gritty novel about fate, tragic loss and retribution. It is also about reconciliation, renewal and forgiveness. Wignall succeeds in revealing the consequences of removing the human face from violence and death. "For The Dogs" is a terrific read anyway you look at it. Highly recommended!
JANA