Kill the Boss GoodBye [Paperback]

Peter Rabe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 27, 1993

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.  Tom Fell has been mad for some time.  But who has the nerve to destroy him?  While Tom Fell was away, his empire collapsed.  The cops started raiding his betting parlors.  The lieutenant he left in charge decided he wanted to stay in charge.

Now Fell is back from his enigmatic vacation--tan, rested, and teetering on the edge of psychosis.  Can Fell claw his way back to power without ending up in an institution? And can anybody stop him without ending up in the morgue?

Kill the Boss Good-Bye is a post-Freudian thiller that manages to be simultaneously terrifying and tragic.  Elegantly modulated and filled with characters who inspire both compassion and revulsion, this novel transports us to the frontier where sickness becomes pure evil.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The study of the self-destruction of a gambling boss as he passes over the borderline into manic psychosis reminds one of the great gangster tragedies of the '30s." --The New York Times

From the Inside Flap

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. Tom Fell has been mad for some time. But who has the nerve to destroy him? While Tom Fell was away, his empire collapsed. The cops started raiding his betting parlors. The lieutenant he left in charge decided he wanted to stay in charge.

Now Fell is back from his enigmatic vacation--tan, rested, and teetering on the edge of psychosis. Can Fell claw his way back to power without ending up in an institution? And can anybody stop him without ending up in the morgue?

Kill the Boss Good-Bye is a post-Freudian thiller that manages to be simultaneously terrifying and tragic. Elegantly modulated and filled with characters who inspire both compassion and revulsion, this novel transports us to the frontier where sickness becomes pure evil.

Product Details

• Paperback: 124 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (April 27, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679740694
• ISBN-13: 978-0679740698
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.3 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,256,665 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A Disappointment, April 6, 1999

By 

Douglas J. Bassett (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Kill the Boss GoodBye (Paperback)

This crime novel has quite a reputation among hardboiled aficianados, but I'm not sure I see why. We follow Fell, a gambling boss, as he checks himself out of a mental sanitarium, regains the power he was in danger of losing, and then goes over the top into manic psychosis. Kill is well-written and believable, but it's not very entertaining, or even very interesting. Part of the problem, I think, is the cold, clinical tone -- it feels more like a psychiatric case study than a novel. The other part of the problem is that there's no one to root for in the book: we never care about Fell, so ultimately we don't care what happens to him. That could have been dealt with if the book was more racy/lurid -- one would read on just to have one's sensibilities shocked -- but this is so quiet, it only manages to inspire indifference. Don't bother hunting this one down, and don't believe the hype.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars not very fun to read, April 1, 2000

By 

ron kouba - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kill the Boss GoodBye (Paperback)

Imagine a crime book without any compelling characters, snappy dialogue, or surprising plot twists and you should get a pretty good picture of 'Kill the Boss'. Dry, detached, and plodding, this 125-page novel drags on in a monotonous tone that really got on my nerves. I ended up forcing myself to finish the book.

3.0 out of 5 stars A quick read I enjoyed, February 9, 2011

By 

chester (concord, ca United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Kill the Boss GoodBye (Paperback)

I read this in one night, while home sick with a cold. It is the story of Thomas Fell, a SoCal crime boss recently released from a sanitarium, who returns to his turf to find his reign threatened by Pander, an ambitious, up and coming hood who wants to take over the action. The story centers around a horse race that Fell fixes to leave Pander owing a lot of money to bad people. Fell, meanwhile, is seeming to act erratically, but yet doing the right things to oust Pander and reclaim his ground. As manic as he's become, the head bosses decide to give him one more chance, but the hit has been put in. Will he make it out in time?

I enjoyed it. A different kind of crime book, but with the usual tough guy posturing, fights, chest thumping and stacked dames. Took me about two hours to read. KInd of a milder Jim Thompson style, and it's interesting to see Fell seemingly manic and out of control, but still manipulating events to his advantage. I think it's worth a read if you like the genre.