Customer Reviews

Hit Man (John Keller Mysteries)

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I know most of these reviews are off-the-top-of-head remarks, but a few of these people are revealing more about their inability to read than anything else. I finished this book today and was amazed at how Block provided a great mix of entertainment and food for thought. It is more subtle than any other book by Block that I have read, and I guess some of these reviewers are zooming through it too fast to pick up on such finesse. Or maybe they don't care. There is one great passage when Keller, the hit man, goes to a zoo and starts feeling sad but doesn't know why: "It's not that it bothered him to see animals caged. From what he understood, they lived longer and stayed healthier. They didn't have to spend half their time trying to get enough food and the ohter half trying to keep from being food for somebody else. It was tempting to look at them and conclude that they were bored, but he didn't believe it. They didn't look bored to him." Keller goes away "unaccountably sad." I stopped reading and thought about this. What a great way for Block to suggest a number of things about this character: that he sees and grapples with the predatory nature of his world, that he fights boredom, that at some level he seems to desire and fear a contentedness comparable to the animals. The book has clever plotting, sharp dialogue, occasional humor, a rich interconnectedness among the stories, but the insights into the life of the main character deepen the book greatly. It is natural to read a popular, bestselling author rather mindlessly, but this book offers both entertainment and a personality to ponder. It is a book to savor.

My sister told me to read this book after we talked about a particularly messy divorce in our family. Her premise: with some people, it's cleaner, simpler and even fairer to hire somebody to kill them.

So, maybe the reason I liked this book so much is that I operated from that premise: some people deserve to die, and that utilitarianism overwhelms the obvious moral objection.

And then you come to like and even pity the terrible man who kills for money. Quite an accomplishment for Lawrence Block.

Keller is an introvert who, like many introverts, thinks about the things he sees and the people he meets in strictly his own way. These quirky insights are what engage the reader. And when you find yourself liking a murderer and, maybe even worse, liking his sarcastic boss, something of a literary coup has happened right under your nose.

Quick tip: if you like audiobooks, this one, read by Robert Forster, comes across much better than the sequel, read by the author. Lawrence, leave audio to the pros!

Although written in a light and wryly amusing tone, I found this to be a somewhat disturbing book. It features a hit man (naturally) who goes by the name of Keller. Keller is a seething mass of emotional contradictions. He thinks nothing of garrotting a man to death, yet gets all choked up himself when he sees animals in captivity.

I found that each time I started to empathise with Keller I was jolted by the realisation that - hang on, the man is a heartless murderer! It was quite a difficult hurdle to overcome. What was even harder for me to reconcile was the humorous mood of the book that dealt with the murders as quickly and efficiently as Keller himself did. This was probably the tone and the effect that Lawrence Block was hoping to achieve, but it was unsettling all the same.

Now, having expressed the aspects of the book that made me uncomfortable, I should point out that I found it very compelling reading and could virtually not put it down. A bit like driving past a road accident I suppose. Lawrence Block manages to portray the anti-hero very well in many of his books and almost pulls it off again here. When Keller's not working you could almost class him as a nice guy.

Some years ago, Lawrence Block wrote a number of pieces for Playboy Magazine, featuring John Keller. Keller lives quietly in an apartment in New York City. He reads the Times, watches TV, eats in restaurants, and does the things that New Yorkers do. But occasionally, he gets a summons to White Plains, where he drinks lemonade with Dot, a witty, fast-talking woman, and receives an assignment. He then packs a bag, flies to a city across the country, and kills someone. Returning, considerably richer, he resumes his New York life until Dot calls again. Now, Lawrence Block has worked the Playboy pieces into an entertaining, yet thoughtful, story of a man whose profession is killing people. The murders are a tiny part of the story. Far more interesting is Keller's unassuming life and his interactions with a pet dog, a girlfriend, and especially with Dot. Much of the book is downright funny, as it smashes the stereotype of a professional killer. Block has put together a story that is not your run-of-the-mill crime tale. It is original, thoroughly enjoyable, and entertaining.

Keller is a paid assassin, a professional killer, who defies the classic stereotype. Instead, his lifestyle is that of the traveling businessman who is just another Manhattan single male when he is home. He does the Times crossword every morning while sipping his coffee. He has tried therapy and purchased a dog to help him with his growing loneliness. However, the therapy made him even more introspective and the dog left him for his former girl friend. He never cooks (even with a microwave) as he lives on take out or dining out. His lonely existence is only broken by his high paying jobs at various locations around the country. When he is not on the job, he reflects on his life and wonders about his victims' families.

HIT MAN is a short story collection about one of the best characters to arrive on the urban crime noir scene in years. Instead of being a hero, Keller is an anti-hero. The stories are all trademark Lawrence Block: gritty, exciting, and entertaining. However, what makes this terrific book so appealing is that Keller could be the guy next door taking out your sister on a date. To make matters even more interesting, Keller, despite his profession, is a likeable character. Let's hope for more Keller works in the near future. He is fascinating!

Harriet Klausner

Lawrence Block is just about the best there is in his genre. Only Donald Westlake is in his class, along with Janet Evanovich, on occasion. Block always manages to write a chiller thriller, replete with jeopardy and suspense, while amusing the reader with clever dialogue and comedic asides. It may be hard for the unitiated reader to imagine an excellent book in which the hero is a hired killer, an unremorseful murderer, if you will, but Block accomplishes exactly that. In fact, the murder is almost, but not quite, a sympathetic character.

The plot is almost insignificant here. For the most part, this is not a novel at all but rather a collection of episodes, interspersed with dialogue between the killer (Keller) and his assignment maker (Dot). Block's dialogue is top notch, in this book and in all his others. The characters are engaging and realistic, half crook and half buffoon (Keller is a stamp collector)--as people are in real life. The ambience (New York City, White Plains, and sundry sites where Keller "works") are perfect.

Block follows this up with "Hit List," an equally entertaining sequel. "Hit Parade," third in the Keller series, is due this year. I can hardly wait to re-enter Keller's perverse world of murder and comedy.

When I picked up this audio book, I was prepared for a Mario Puzo-like Mafia book. But I was mistaken. To the author's credit, by the end of the first cassette, I was glad it wasn't a "godfather book." Block creates a "hero" who is a hit man by profession. We get to like him, root for him, and feel a fine satisfaction when he finally finds himself. The matter-of-fact delivery of Robert Forster is right on target. I loved the way he said Keller's name. I loved the characters in this book. And I loved that dog!

This book is very average. This is not a compliment. Readers who gassed all over the place and gave it a 10 need to start reading some better books!. For example, the character of Dot is not fleshed out. She's witty and sardonic, but is she Maude or Mary Tyer Moore? I agree that after 180 pages, this story went nowhere. The stamp thing was pointless since Keller did not change his work. The fact that he was almost never caught or in danger was ridiculous.

I enjoyed Hit Man despite the fact that it lacks the basic elements that make a novel a novel, notably a major conflict, rising action, a climax... some semblance of a plot. Hit Man reads like a collection of short stories (which is apparently what its original format was) but that isn't a terrible thing. They're pretty entertaining short stories.

Since this is a novel without a plot, one might think it's a character study, but that would be an overstatement. Block doesn't offer much insight into the mind and motivation of the killer named Keller. In fact, Keller doesn't change at all as a result of the events in the novel. He doesn't evolve or develop a new perspective or have an epiphany or anything remotely similar. He's basically the same guy at the end of the novel as he was in the beginning.

As a character, Keller is a mass of contradictions. In some instances he seems concerned about justice, going so far as to kill the person who hired him rather than killing the likeable man he was hired to kill. In another instance he doesn't seem the least bit concerned when an innocent couple is inadvertently murdered. He feels badly for dogs confined in cages but has no trouble murdering dozens of people. These contradictions are presumably intended to give the character depth (he isn't a predictable stereo-type) but that isn't much substitute for genuine character development.

The appeal of Hit Man is rooted in its amusing premise (that Keller is just a regular guy with an unusual job). Block writes snappy, entertaining dialogue and he makes Keller, a mass murderer for hire, a pretty likeable guy. Ultimately, it is the improbable likeability of Keller that makes this novel a pleasure to read. It would have been nice if Block had gone to the trouble to develop a plot so that Keller had more to do than buy a dog, collect stamps, go to the movies, and kill a few people.

If you're looking for mystery - you won't find it here. If you're looking for suspense - it's not here either. If you're looking for an insiders glimpse into the mind of a hired killer - you won't find that either. In fact, you won't even find a plot.

What you will find is a likeable character, snappy dialogue, breezy writing and an amusing premise - the Hit Man as a regular guy, just putting in another day at the office.

What more can one crave from a novel than to want to keep reading. Keller is a hit man we can care about. He is at once ordinary (in his desire for some normal existance--he tries on possible average lives like shoes) and extraordinary in that he IS a killer. Having read Hit Man and Hit List, there is only one thing I can say, "I want more Keller!" Thank you Mr. Block.