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Pest Control: A Novel
 
 
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Pest Control: A Novel [Hardcover]

Bill Fitzhugh (Author)
4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (98 customer reviews)


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Book Description

December 1996
Starting an all-natural pest control company, Bob Dillan accidentally lands in the hands of Marcel, who is seeking an assassin to make a million-dollar hit, and when Bob unknowingly accepts the job, a comedy of errors ensues.

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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

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.

From Kirkus Reviews

A sweetly comic thriller that finally answers the age-old question: What if a sad-sack New York exterminator got his antennae crossed with the professionals who wipe out Homo sapiens? At his wit's (and checkbook's) end after walking off his job killing bugs with lethal cocktails, Bob Dillon schemes at his own unique approach to extermination: breeding predatory strains of insects who'll feast on termites and roaches without developing chemical-resistant new strains of pests or loading the planet with hazardous toxins. It's a plan with all the makings of an American success story, but it spins out of control when Bob's ad falls into the hands of a middleman who brokers assassinations and thinks Bob's sobriquet of ``the Exterminator'' is a veiled reference to his status as a hit man. Getting a faint whiff of the trouble in his future, Bob begs off the lucrative job he's offered. But when the victim is accidentally killed anyway, the middleman, assuming Bob's managed the job with unusual finesse, duly sends him his fee. So far, everything's as innocuous as the endless stream of double-entendres about extermination--except that (1) the UPS package with all that lovely money gets held up en route to Bob; (2) his wife and daughter, impatient with his uncompromisingly idealistic approach to pest control, walk out on him; and (3) the brother and murderer of a Bolivian druglord who wants to cover up his own crime screams that it was the work of the Exterminator and offers a $10 million bounty to whoever kills Bob--attracting all the top exterminators in the field. There's the subtle Chinese knife expert, the glamorous Frenchwoman, the parvenu Cowboy, the transvestite dwarf, and the melancholy, suicidal top man, whose unlikely friendship with his prospective target is the high point of this generally predictable tale. A first novel that's not sharply enough written to offer serious competition to Florida farceurs Hiaasen and Shames, but consistently sunny and good-humored. (Film rights to Warner Brothers) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 312 pages
  • Publisher: Avon Books (T); 1st edition (December 1996)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0380973480
  • ISBN-13: 978-0380973484
  • Product Dimensions: 7.1 x 5 x 1.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (98 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #843,991 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

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.

 

Customer Reviews

98 Reviews
5 star:
 (49)
4 star:
 (26)
3 star:
 (9)
2 star:
 (7)
1 star:
 (7)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.1 out of 5 stars (98 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome!, August 23, 1998
By A Customer
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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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Out of Control, September 3, 2000
"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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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars "I laughed until my head fell off" -- Barzan Ibrahim, January 15, 2007
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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Inside This Book (learn more)
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First Sentence:
His eyes were metallic blue jewel beetles peering out from underneath a pair of furry black caterpillars. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
fiberglass bug, assassin bugs, professional killer
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
New York, Shadow Man, Bob Dillon, Bug Room, Sixth Avenue, Girl Scout, Mike Wolfe, Strain Two, Strain Zero, Maison Henri, Dick Pratt, Strain Three, United States, Wheel Bugs, Bob Dylan, Strain One, African Leaf Beetles, Bee Assassin, Jagged Ambush Bugs, Lower East Side, Spined Assassin, Desert Eagle, Hans Huweiler, Masked Hunter, Miguel Riviera
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