Amazon.com: Greatest Hits: Original Stories of Hitmen, Hired Guns, and Private Eyes (9780786718481): Robert J. Randisi: Books

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Greatest Hits: Original Stories of Hitmen, Hired Guns, and Private Eyes [Paperback]

Robert J. Randisi (Editor)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)


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Book Description

October 18, 2006
Featuring standout writers of mystery and suspense like Lawrence Block, Jeffery Deaver, James W. Hall, Jeff Abbott, Max Allan Collins, and Lee Child — all of them best-selling authors, most of them winners of Edgar or Shamus awards (or both) — this anthology comes with a chamberful of surefire stories. Loaded with tension, charged with uncertainty, these taut tales bring their unsuspecting or hunted and fearful marks into the deadly sight of a hired killer's gun. The hit men, or women, meanwhile match their criminal wits with police detectives, seasoned private eyes, the resolute everyguy, or amateur sleuths to often unexpected and frequently startling ends.

Every one of the stories here is a hit. Each of them is craftily calibrated and written expressly for this collection, They include new work by the popular, award-winning Ed Gorman, the versatile writer-editor Robert J. Randisi, and the recipient of the first-ever Sherlock Award for best detective, John Harvey. Cunning inventive hit-list authors such as Christine Matthews, Barbara Seranella, Marcus Pelagrimas, and Kevin Wignall further ratchet up the suspense to keep Greatest Hits true to its name, and aim.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Veteran anthologist Randisi (Murder and All That Jazz) has gathered 15 memorable tales of contract killers, antiheroes paid to carry out murders for a variety of clients and motives. Contributors include well-known names, among them Lawrence Block, Max Allan Collins and Ed Gorman. While the moral code that guides the actions of some of the murderers requires a measure of suspension of disbelief, the taut language and suspenseful plot twists that mark virtually all the stories should draw in even non–hard-boiled devotees. The highlights are Lee Child's "The Greatest Trick of All," with its creative use of first-person narrative, and Randisi's own "Upon My Soul," an engaging variation on an old Western theme. Kevin Wignall's "Retrospective" doesn't quite hold up under the weight of its political themes. Though some of the plots are similar, there isn't a bad story in the bunch, a notable accomplishment. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

This is one of those books that prove the term mixed bag isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's a collection of original short fiction by some of the mystery genre's brightest lights; it has a little bit of everything, and all of it is wonderfully entertaining. Old hands like Lawrence Block, James W. Hall, Lee Child, Ed Gorman, Max Allan Collins, and Jeffrey Deaver work wonderful variations on the theme of the killer-for-hire, and newer voices, including Kevin Wignall, Barbara Seranella, and Jenny Siler, show that they're a match for their veteran colleagues. Fans of short mystery fiction who sit on the hard-boiled side of the aisle will be in seventh heaven. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Paperback: 336 pages
  • Publisher: Carroll & Graf (October 18, 2006)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 078671848X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0786718481
  • Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.6 x 1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,654,896 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

 

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Looking to sample the genre?, May 3, 2009
This review is from: Greatest Hits: Original Stories of Hitmen, Hired Guns, and Private Eyes (Paperback)
Short attention span? Don't have the time to devote to a full-length novel? Or maybe you just want to sample the genre with a book that contains multiple writing styles. This may be the book for you.

I was in the library with my wife recently and was strolling past the isles looking for something to pass the time. The cover of this book alone is enough to grab your attention.

After I saw it was short stories, it was perfect to pass the time with and something I could be interrupted while reading. However, before I knew it I was half way through the book devouring each story. My wife was finally ready to leave but I wasn't ready to leave the book!

I picked up a copy on Amazon because I knew it was something I would probably go back and reread in the future. For someone who might get bored with a novel that has the same writing style throughout, this may just keep your attention. The first few stories start out with small narratives following just the day-to-day activities of a hitman "on the job."

But before you get bored it moves on to stories following their inner thoughts, personal relationships, life "off the job", and a few stories that will throw you for a loop at the end in true mystery story style.

The book ends with stories about private investigators where clients hire them not just for their ability to kill someone but their ability to judge based on the client's criteria whether they should be killed.

This is a truly large collection of stories that share a theme on the surface only but each story is a new adventure that is totally unrelated to any other story in the book. You will start fresh with each narrative and will ask yourself at the end of each one, "How can it get better than that?"
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