Bob Dillon can't get a break. A down-on-his-luck exterminator, all he wants is his own truck with a big fiberglass bug on top -- and success with his radical new, environmentally friendly pest-killing technique. So Bob decides to advertise.
Unfortunately, one of his flyers falls into the wrong hands. Marcel, a shady Frenchman, needs an assassin to handle a million-dollar hit, and he figures that Bob Dillon is his man. Through no fault -- or participation -- of his own, this unwitting pest controller from Queens has become a major player in the dangerous world of contract murder.
And now Bob's running for his life through the wormiest sections of the Big Apple -- one step ahead of a Bolivian executioner, a homicidal transvestite dwarf, meatheaded CIA agents, cabbies packing serious heat ... and the world's number-one hit man, who might just turn out to be the best friend Bob's got.
Fired from his job with a pest control company in Queens, New York, Bob Dillon starts his own business using his environmentally friendly technique: hybrid killer insects that eat cockroaches. Meanwhile, Marcel, a broker who contracts for assassins, is looking for a reliable newcomer to complete a million-dollar hit. He advertises and Bob responds, neither understanding the nature of the other's "exterminating" business. Very shortly thereafter, ten of the most dangerous hitpersons in the world descend on Queens, which is pretty dangerous itself and more than up to the challenge. Broadly satiric, extremely funny, and tailor-made for film (rights have already been sold to Warner Brothers), this is not exactly demanding reading, but it is fun and likely to be popular. A reasonable purchase for most public libraries.?Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, Va. Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Bill Fitzhugh was born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi. He has also lived in the U.S. Virgin Islands, Seattle, Washington, and Los Angeles. He writes satiric crime novels, the occasional comic mystery, and a weekly show for the Deep Tracks channel of Sirius-XM Satellite Radio.
Two of his novels, Pest Control and Cross Dressing have been in development at Warner Brothers and Universal Studios respectively for nearly a decade. Imagine how good they'll be when they're done. Cross Dressing was nominated for the Barry Award as well as the Salt Lake County Library System's Reader's Choice Award and it won the 2002 Best Fiction award from the Mississippi Library Association.
Pest Control was one of Amazon's Top 50 Mysteries in 1997.
The Organ Grinders, which the Washington Post Book Review called, 'A laugh out loud read [and] an awe-inspiring feat' is a tender exploration of the feasibility and genetic implications of human gonad transplants, among other things. As Booklist pointed out, 'It's not easy walking the tightrope between medical thrillers a la Crichton and absurdist black comedy in the Hiaasen mold, but Fitzhugh manages it smoothly.'
One of Bill's proudest moments was when the brilliant and hysterically funny Molly Ivins wrote in one of her columns, 'Bill Fitzhugh is a seriously funny guy...The Organ Grinders is hilarious, but it can also make you gasp with horror... and the humor is completely off-the-wall.'
Reviewing his award winning novel, Fender Benders, The New York Times said, 'Fitzhugh is a strange and deadly amalgam of screenwriter and comic novelist and his facility and wit, and his taste for the perverse, put him in a league with Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard.' Fender Benders won The Lefty Award for best humorous novel of 2001. Kinky Friedman himself said Fender Benders is 'Wickedly, irredeemable funny [and] wise beyond words and music. Fitzhugh has nailed the truest depiction of Nashville since Hank went to Jesus."
Fitzhugh's fifth novel was the political satire, Heart Seizure. Former Texas governor Ann Richards said 'Fitzhugh can spin a story and skewer a politician better than just about anyone I know.' As if that wasn't enough, the good folks at the Sunday Oklahoman called it, 'A wickedly outrageous satire that takes on the federal government, the media, and today's health care system with precise and scathing wit.'
Radio Activity, the first of a comic mystery series featuring classic rock deejay Rick Shannon, was published in April 2004. Jill Conner Browne, the Boss Sweet Potato Queen herownself said, 'Bill Fitzhugh is the only mystery writer I ever really loved.'
The second novel in this series, Highway 61 Resurfaced, was published in April 2005. Unable to control himself after reading it, Carl Hiaasen said, 'Bill Fitzhugh is a deeply disturbed individual who uses his warped talents to write very funny novels, the latest being Highway 61 Resurfaced. You will seriously dig this book if you like classic rock, Southern blues, clever mysteries and cats with loathsome sinus infections.'
Fitzhugh, a one-time FM rock deejay, also writes, produces, and hosts a weekly show on Sirius-XM Satellite Radio's Deep Tracks channel called 'Fitzhugh's All Hand Mixed Vinyl.' It's a weekly dose of nostalgia for anyone who grew up listening to FM rock radio before the consultants took over. Great segues, mixes, and mash-ups the way we used to do 'em.
Fitzhugh, whose books have been translated into German, Japanese, and Italian, Spanish, and Romanian lives in Los Angeles with his wife and his record collection. He has completed The Exterminators, the sequel to Pest Control, which will be published in 2011.
Pest Control by Bill Fitzhugh is a truly wonderful novel. Fitzhugh takes a classic mystery story set in New York and adds a bunch of weird charachters and plot twists. The book is about an exterminator and his family. The exterminator is appalled by the use of pesticides to kill bugs and is creating his own all natural method using his genetically engineered assasin bugs. He quits his job and sees an ad in the paper offering 50,000 bucks for an extermination job. He sends in a resume and is given the job, unaware that his victim is to be a swiss millionaire. The guy dies anyway, and asassins around the world flock to NY to eliminate their new competitor. Klaus, a soft-hearted crack asassin, befriends him, and the rest of the story is a hilarious chase through the big apple. The book is often found under mystery in bookstores, but it is really a comedy. This book is definetly a read for anyone with a sense of humor!
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"Pest Control" is a hard book to describe. I have to admit there are some truly hilarious scenes and situations in the book, but there are times when Fitzhugh bogs it down with his relentless insistence on letting us know how Bob feels about his work, his wife, and his child. Bob comes across as a selfish, inane, inept, and generally ridiculous man. Each time one of his cross-bred non-pesticide attempts fail, he seems dumber and dumber. But, he's your hero, and you have to wish him well. The assorted supporting characters are wonderful, particularly the suicidal #1 hitman, who befriends Bob; the clothes-conscious Jean, assistant to Marcel, the hit negotiator; and some of the other assassins, particularly the French beauty who has a hilarious moment when looking for gourmet chocolates in a quick-stop place. Another interesting moment occurs when the transvestite dwarf killer comes on to an overweight, underloved woman, who wants to make out while eating peanuts. This is a rather "touching" and poignant moment, almost out of place in this frantically paced novel. Give Fitzhugh credit, though--it's vastly entertaining, and you can forgive it's obvious flaws because it does make you laugh.
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If Robert Ludlum and Douglas Adams had wild homosexual monkey love (not that there's anything wrong with that) with each other before their individual demises, their bastard love child would have been Bill Fitzhugh.
More succinctly, Fitzhugh's novel Pest Control takes the best thriller elements of Ludlum's memory-addled spies and Adam's irreverent humo(u)r and sensibilities and hybrids them (to verb a noun) like so many assassin bugs in the Bugarariums of protagonist Bob Dillon.
In a world where the top 5 assassins know their individual ranks, and where there are still "exterminations" that need doing, hapless Dillon answers a classified ad in a drunken stupor. An ad to kill a man.
When that man dies, Bob's to blame, and everyone from a transvestite dwarf to the CIA gunning for him.
It's a fast page-turner, with at least one chuckle, smile or groaner on every page. Fortunately, the groaners are outnumbered by the smiles and chuckles at least 3-to-1.
Characters are all unique, in some cases (ok, all cases) bizarrely so, as in the case of Bob's daughter's best friend's mother, who has a circus fetish involving dwarfs, bags of peanuts, and... well, really, isn't that enough?
You have to come into this book with a sense of humor. Perhaps even an advanced sense of humor. Curmudgeons will flee this book faster than an cockroach from a flashlight.
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