These Guns for Hire [Hardcover]

J.A. Konrath (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2006

They have a combined total of 500 million book sales, and have won every possible award in the mystery, thriller, and dark fiction genres.

Thirty original hitman stories by today's modern masters. Noir. Wise guys. Sex. Freelance assassins. Humor. Violence. Femme fatales. Amateurs. Horror. Surprise twists. Hardboiled.

Get ready for some wet work!

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Niche short story collections--especially those with a specific theme, in this case, hit men--tend to succeed or fail on the strength of their contributors. In baseball terms, this one has a deep bench: David Morrell, Ed Gorman, Lawrence Block, Sean Doolittle, William Kent Krueger, Max Allan Collins, and others. The stories fall into a variety of genres (pulp, noir, supernatural, comic), and some of them feature familiar series characters, such as Block's Keller and Collins' Quarry. Readers who aren't keen on stories about paid assassins probably will pass on this collection, but that's their loss. For everyone else, it's a guaranteed hit. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

"...a guaranteed hit." -- Booklist

"Reading a collection like this provides mystery fans with intriguing snippets of various styles and shades of darkness." -- Mystery Scene

"The many pleasures of pulp are here in abundance." -- Library Journal

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 492 pages
• Publisher: Bleak House Books; First Edition edition (October 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1932557202
• ISBN-13: 978-1932557206
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,096,434 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Hit-men ROCK! January 7, 2007

By J. L. Comeau VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Horror comes in many flavors: supernatural, psychological, science fictional, etc. The edges of genres often blur and bleed into one another, and genre authors can be found in genres for which they are not generally known. Case in point: THESE GUNS FOR HIRE, containing stories about hitmen, which is ostensibly a mystery genre anthology, but wait! You'll find authors included herein whose works I've reviewed previously down here in the Tomb, those works having been firmly rooted in the horror genre. So what gives? Fiction is fluid, my friends, and if you're looking for the dark stuff in the horror aisles exclusively, you're missing some spine-curdling scares. Take the short story "Everybody Wins" by Lisa Mannetti--it's a sardonically horrifying, suspenseful and terrifically funny tale about a suicidal middle-aged woman who is bamboozled into performing a major contract hit when she seeks help from a suicide hot line. Horror writer Ed Gorman turns in a very frightening story about a down-and-out jailbird who is approached by a former beauty queen to insure that her daughter wins a major pageant--requesting not murder, but the permanent disfigurement of her daughter's competition. I was delighted to find one of my favorite writers of totally twisted horror, Jeff Strand, included as well. His bizarre story about one of the most ineffective hitmen ever to pick up a gun is just what I would have expected from this crazy guy. Horror dynamo Jay Bonansinga tells of a seasoned pro who truly enjoys the wetwork, and it's a supernatural tale, as is "Pet Project" by Robert Walker! Horror/mystery writer David Morrell makes a fine showing with his tale of the ultimate "Attitude Adjuster". You'll also find the best mystery writers working today included in this spectacular pulse-pounding volume. This is a high-octane, heart-pumping, knock-yer-socks-off volume of 31 great stories all about hitmen that will satisfy fans of horror, mystery and suspense equally. You'll encounter stories that can be considered pulp, noir, supernatural, humorous or just plain unclassifiable. And there's not a clinker in the bunch! Killer!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars up and down March 22, 2010

By Paul Ehrmann

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

Easy reading - a collection of short stories, some better and more engorssing than others but well worth the time.

3.0 out of 5 stars Not bad but not great -- a good introduction to a number of less-known authors May 15, 2013

By Michael K. Smith TOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

Noir crime fiction has made a comeback in recent years, including a flood of stories featuring assassins and killers-for-hire. Hitmen are interesting subjects for fiction because, if they're successful at what they do, they're cool, professional, and in control. Probably they're amoral -- or, at least, not troubled psychologically by what they see as their jobs. One of the best-known of this recent crop of killers is Lawrence Block's Keller, and he's represented here in "Keller's Designated Hitter," one of the four stories that wasn't written specifically for this fat anthology. Other popular authors who contributed include Victor Gischler, Max Allan Collins, Ed Gorman, and David Morell. All the others are new to me, and several among them are worth checking out in future. I can't summarize this many stories, except to say that they run the gamut from thoughtful and philosophical to tongue-in-cheek to "gotcha" stories with trick endings. The average quality of the writing is a little above average, which is fair enough, and since they run around fifteen pages each, you can easily dip in as the mood takes you. There are a few which stray rather too far from the rubric; a killing carried out because of circumstances and without forethought isn't a "hit." But most of them hew closely to what one expects from a collection with this title and the variety of approaches is enlightening.