The Ethical Assassin [MP3 Audio] [MP3 CD]

David Liss (Author), William Dufris (Reader)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 28, 2006

No one is more surprised than Lem Altick when it turns out he’s actually good at peddling encyclopedias door to door. He hates the predatory world of sales, but he needs the money to pay for college. Then things go horribly wrong. In a sweltering trailer in rural Florida, a couple Lem has spent hours pitching to is shot dead before his eyes, and the unassuming young man is suddenly pulled into the dark world of conspiracy and murder. Not just murder: assassination - or so claims the killer, the mysterious and strangely charismatic Melford Kean, who has struck without remorse and with remarkable good cheer. But the self-styled ethical assassin hadn’t planned on a witness, and so he makes Lem a deal: Stay quiet and there will be no problems. Go to the police and take the fall. Before Lem can decide, he is drawn against his will into the realm of the assassin, a post-Marxist intellectual with whom he forms an unlikely (and perhaps unwise) friendship. The ethical assassin could be a charming sociopath, eco-activist, or vigilante for social justice. Lem isn’t sure what is motivating Melford, but Lem realizes that to save himself, he must unravel the mystery of why the assassinations have occurred. To do so, he descends deeper into a bizarre world he never knew existed, where a group of desperate schemers are involved in a plot that could keep Lem from leaving town alive.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Liss (A Conspiracy of Paper) recycles familiar conventions—drug dealers, missing money, an innocent hero mixed up with bad guys—but salvages his novel from banality with a few quirky touches. In sticky south Florida of August 1985, Lem Altick, a 17-year-old door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, witnesses the murder of two potential customers in a mobile home. Fearing he'll be fingered for the crime—or worse, that he's next—Lem establishes a wary relationship with the likable killer, Melford Kean, who is either a violent psychopath or an animal rights vigilante fighting agribusiness. Lem must also watch out for Jim Doe, the corrupt, redneck police chief who saw Lem at the trailer on the night of the crimes. Lem's paranoia heightens when he learns of Doe's connection to his employers at the encyclopedia sales company, which turns out to be a front. While Lem repeatedly skitters away from danger as he gathers clues that reveal a web of corruption, he finds time to fall for fellow bookseller Chitra and to undergo a political awakening under Melford's tutelage. Liss provides enough entertainment to keep the pages turning, but this hybrid of a thriller and a coming-of-age story doesn't quite succeed as either. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Readers expecting another historical thriller from Liss in the manner of A Conspiracy of Paper (2000) and The Coffee Trader (2003) are in for quite a surprise. Moving from Arturo Perez-Reverte territory to the very different world of Carl Hiaasen, Liss delivers a contemporary ecoterrorist romp shot through with elements of the absurd. It begins with a 17-year-old Jewish encyclopedia salesman working door to door in a South Florida trailer park (Is the absurdist angle apparent yet?). Lem Altick is saving money for college by tricking poor people into buying supermarket encyclopedias, but he gets more than he bargained for when an assassin with "Warholishy" hair saunters into a trailer where Lem is about to close a deal and efficiently kills the two would-be encyclopedia readers and then engages Lem in a chat about his favorite Shakespeare play (Lem is partial to Twelfth Night). It only gets weirder from there, as Lem finds himself a sort of comrade-in-arms with the ethical assassin, whose real purpose seems to be raising havoc with some distinctly unethical pig farmers. There's also a sicko small-town sheriff lurking in the wings, having apparently wandered into the action straight out of Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280. The jump from financial chicanery in seventeenth-century London to redneck craziness, South Florida style, seems daunting, but Liss sails across the abyss unscathed. Be careful to whom you recommend this: the Perez-Reverte crowd may not be amused, but Hiaasen's homeboys will feel right at home down in the muck with a gang of evildoing pig farmers. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• MP3 CD
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio on MP3-CD Lib Ed; Unabridged edition (February 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1423309324
• ISBN-13: 978-1423309321
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (55 customer reviews)

More About the Author

David Liss is the author six novels, most recently The Devil's Company. He has five previous bestselling novel: A Conspiracy of Paper, winner of the 2000 Edgar Award for Best First Novel, The Coffee Trader, A Spectacle of Corruption, The Ethical Assassin and The Whiskey Rebels. In 2008, at the United Nations Convention against Corruption in Bali, Indonesia, he was named an Artist for Integrity by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. No one is really sure why he should receive this honor or what it means, but it very possibly makes him the Bono of historical fiction. David Liss's novels have been translated into more than two dozen languages. He lives in San Antonio with his wife and children. Visist his web site at www.davidliss.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Cause Wrapped Up In A Novel, September 24, 2006

By 

Brett Benner (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ethical Assassin: A Novel (Hardcover)

Many people have commented on how this could be something that Carl Hiaasen could've penned, and I couldn't agree more. Set in Florida in the mid eighties the book begins with a seventeen year old encylopedia salesman named Lem Altick who, while pitching his product to a couple, witnesses their brutal slaying. Their assassin turns out to be a charming, intelligent guy whose agenda, or more appropriately 'mission', reveals itself later in the book in a didactic (to the point of bashing you over the head) way. However, before this, the book is ripe with a madcap plot and cast of off the wall characters that flavor Hiassen novels including, an oversexed redneck sheriff, and the surviving half of Siamese twins. The book is genuinely funny, and even though the shady dealings that are going on are not that unique, his characters are.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Liss masters a different genre, August 25, 2006

By 

Cory D. Slipman (Rockville Centre, N.Y.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Ethical Assassin: A Novel (Hardcover)

David Liss, so accomplished in his previous forte, the historical fiction, has penned a highly entertaining contemporary thriller that borders on the absurd in a style similar to Carl Hiassen.

The story evolves in the relating of the experiences of 17 year old South Floridian, Lem Altick. Lem, a bright and perceptive young man had been accepted to Columbia University. Circumstances arose which left him $30,000 short of the tuition required. He was attempting to make money by selling encyclopedias door to door, with a mostly motley crew presently canvassing the vicinity of Jacksonville.

Lem had apparently struck gold in a foul smelling trailer park known as Meadowbrook Grove. He was giving his best sales pitch to a sketchy looking couple named Karen and Bastard when suddenly someone bursts into the trailer and dispatches the couple with two gunshots to the head. This was Lem's startling introduction to the "ethical assassin", the bleached blonde, ghoulish looking Melford Kean.

Kean wishing to assure Lem's silence planted clues that would implicate him should Lem squeal. Kean, a rational psychotic was unwilling to harm Lem and recruited him to help him cover his tracks concerning his actions. We soon learn that Melford is a fervent animal rights activist and vegetarian. All through their interactions, Melford tries to sway Lem to his particular ideology.

Meadowbrook Grove, it turns out, is a separate principality governed by corrupt mayor and police chief Jim Doe, who had set up the trailer park as a speed trap. The mullet coiffed, dentally challenged Doe is also a front man for the local enterprises ensconsed in Meadowbrook Grove owned by Miami Vice attired, borderline pedophile B.B. Gunn. Gunn owns a foul smelling pig farm which also serves as a front for an illegal crystal meth lab. Gunn is also connected with the encyclopedia business, whose leader known as the Gambler (real name is Kenny Rogers) was a former leg breaker in Las Vegas.

The double homicide witnessed by Lem has potential to expose the whole slimy operation in Meadowbrook Grove. Liss navigates us through the odyssey of Lem Altick as he tries to stay out of harm's way while coming in contact with a bevy of bizarre characters.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Big Departure for Liss, January 20, 2008

By 

S. Schwartz "romonko" (alberta canada) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Ethical Assassin: A Novel (Paperback)

I too am a huge fan of David Liss's writing, and I love his two Benjamin Weaver books. This book is as different from these as possible. For one thing the setting is 1985 Florida, not some much earlier historical time in Europe. For another, this book has a different storyline altogether. It chronicles one wild weekend in a 17-year-old Enclopedia salesman's life when he gets on the wrong side of the law, and on the right side of a strangely ethical assassin. Poor Lem doesn't know what he has gotten himself into when two potential customes are shot right in front of him. The book kept my interest, and it was actually quite funny, but somehow it fell short at the denouement stage. The book is certainly worth reading if only for the sheer fun of it, and its probably as bizarre as fiction can get. But I can't help hoping that Liss will get back to a much earlier time in history with his next book.