Killing Time [Audio Cassette]

Thomas Berger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1987

KILLING TIME is a psychological novel about crime. The hero, Joseph Detweiler, is the world's most courteous, sensitive, sincere and likable killer. He is even innocent of the fact that a crime has been committed.

This tough and bizarre story breaks all the rules. It is not a whodunit, because the killer is already known. It is not a detective story or a sociological treatise on crime, because it is told from the point of view of the criminal.

"Detweiler is one of the most complex characters in modern fiction...the eeriest thing about him is that he is wholly believable, which is to say, of course, that Thomas Berger is a magnificent novelist." (National Review)

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

8 1.5-hour cassettes

Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Books on Tape, Inc. (October 1, 1987)
• ISBN-10: 0736612300
• ISBN-13: 978-0736612302
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 6.7 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,609,910 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Willie Mays of Contemporary Novelists, February 1, 2002

By 

Ted Fontenot (Lafayette, Louisiana USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Killing time : a novel (Paperback)

As different from the author's best known work, The Little Big Man, as that novel is from another comic masterpiece of his, Reinhart in Love, which was completely different from Arthur Rex, Berger's gleeful subversion of the historical novel, which is .... If I were one of those vitamin-deficient, pellagra-ridden geeks who believe in conspiracy theories, I'd believe that there is one, and has been for 35 years, to keep this author down. If this author's books aren't forthwith reprinted, someone ought to die. The body of his work is so rich and varied, in style and subject matter, that he makes Updike seem like the schoolmarmish fuddy duddy he essentially is and Roth the sophomoric he would like to be. Killing Time (now, get this) is about a lovable killer, a man who kills certain people because he felt sorry for them. Yes, Joe Detweiler seems to be a mystic, but at the same time he seems very much a down to earth naif who only wants to become one with the universe (that's why he like to have his penis amputated). Along the way to the transcendent awakening he so devoutly seeks, Joe befriends and mystifies the detective who is trying to solve the murder case, Tierney, the woman who Tierney is having an affair with, who is the sister and daughter of the victims, and (not least) the attorney Melrose, who thinks he has it altogether and who wants to save the childlike Detweiler from himself and an world that just won't understand Detweiler, even though Detweiler thinks his reasons for what he did are so obvious they should go without saying (he himself had forgotten he had committed the murders). And that's just a glib from-the-hip abstract of this highly original novel.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best crime novels I have ever read., August 31, 1997

By 

Joel Bergsman (St Leonard, MD USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Killing Time (Hardcover)

The most serious crime involved in Thomas Berger's "Killing Time" is that the book is out of print. The author lets you know early on who committed the triple murder that's discovered in the opening pages. The joys of the book are the why, the personality of the killer, how it ends, and the kinky truths in the lives of the other characters, major and minor, who Berger creates with a reality, a wit and a way with words that are, simply, tops. Hunt down a copy, read it, and cajole the publisher to reissue this classic

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Crazy or not?, August 8, 2005

By 

Bomojaz (South Central PA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Killing Time (Paperback)

Joe Detweilor is a strange one: he believes life is time; by taking a life you are only stopping time - but it (time) continues in the killer. Detweilor kills three people, but hardly even recognizes the fact because time has continued afterward. Is he crazy? Berger makes him believable, even worth going along with - for a while, anyway. Some of it gets a bit draggy, but Berger's masterly use of the language is in full force here; he's a pleasure to read.