The Ethical Assassin: A Novel (Hardcover)

by David Liss (Author)
Key Phrases: credit app, waste lagoon, Ronny Neil, Jim Doe, Meadowbrook Grove (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Liss (A Conspiracy of Paper) recycles familiar conventions—drug dealers, missing money, an innocent hero mixed up with bad guys—but salvages his novel from banality with a few quirky touches. In sticky south Florida of August 1985, Lem Altick, a 17-year-old door-to-door encyclopedia salesman, witnesses the murder of two potential customers in a mobile home. Fearing he'll be fingered for the crime—or worse, that he's next—Lem establishes a wary relationship with the likable killer, Melford Kean, who is either a violent psychopath or an animal rights vigilante fighting agribusiness. Lem must also watch out for Jim Doe, the corrupt, redneck police chief who saw Lem at the trailer on the night of the crimes. Lem's paranoia heightens when he learns of Doe's connection to his employers at the encyclopedia sales company, which turns out to be a front. While Lem repeatedly skitters away from danger as he gathers clues that reveal a web of corruption, he finds time to fall for fellow bookseller Chitra and to undergo a political awakening under Melford's tutelage. Liss provides enough entertainment to keep the pages turning, but this hybrid of a thriller and a coming-of-age story doesn't quite succeed as either. (Mar.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From The Washington Post
David Liss has a nose for history. He can smell it hundreds of years away. His debut, A Conspiracy of Paper, and its sequel, A Spectacle of Corruption, reeked of gritty 18th-century London. The Coffee Trader captured the scent of unwashed whores along with the best part of waking up in 17th-century Amsterdam. Now, for the first time, Liss has written a contemporary novel, The Ethical Assassin, set in Florida, but his olfactory sense is as acute as ever. "A putrid miasma whirled and eddied through the streets of the trailer park," he tells us in the opening paragraph. "It smelled like a prison camp outhouse. Worse." Liss's previous novels were entertaining thrillers that also happened to teach us about the development of market economies in Europe. Intricate details about city life, including the smells of crowded streets without plumbing, were just part of the redolent charm of his scholarship. The Ethical Assassin is far less cerebral, but the stench is front and center, and the author is more didactic than ever. The story revolves around two of the nastiest enterprises in the world -- pig farming and crystal meth production -- but what really has Liss holding his nose is the moral rot of a society that eats meat. His narrator is a charmingly sarcastic 17-year-old named Lem Altick, who survived high school by looking forward to college anywhere but in Florida. But when he got accepted to Columbia, his stepfather reneged on the promise of tuition money, so Lem is selling encyclopedias door-to-door to people who would be better off spending their money on food or propane. "Let me be absolutely clear about this," he tells us at the outset. "Not once, not one single time, no matter how happy I was to make a sale, did I ever do it without the acid tinge of regret.... but I was good at sales, good at it in a way I'd never been good at anything in my life. Sure, I'd done well in school, on my SATs, that sort of thing. But those were solitary activities, this was public, communal, social. I, Lem Altick, was getting the best of others in a social situation, and let me tell you, that was new, and it was delicious." We meet Lem in a little speed-trap town that's home to a pig farm. Lem is working on a classic trailer-trash couple named Karen and Bastard. "It ain't my real name, but it's my real nickname," Bastard tells him. Lem runs through his shtick ("Would you be happier if your child was learning more?") and wins them over, but just as he reaches for their check, a man opens the door and shoots Karen and Bastard in the head. That's always a deal breaker. This "ethical" assassin introduces himself as Melford and quickly goes about framing Lem for the double murder, then helping him elude the police chief, who turns out to be a psychotic killer, rapist and drug manufacturer. Zany encounters ensue. A boys' club founder keeps his pedophilia just barely in check. His sexy assistant is a Siamese twin haunted by her dead sister. More bodies pile up. Chapters jump from one cliffhanger to the next. As Lem realizes that the encyclopedia biz is really a front for selling something far more lucrative, gangsters start to close in on him, and the only person he can depend on is Melford, the man who blew away his last two customers. All this is great fun, and if Liss is trespassing on Carl Hiaasen's turf, well, who cares? It's a big state. What's more troubling is the heavy-handed moralizing that Liss dishes out in this otherwise comic thriller. Once he's dispatched Karen and Bastard, Melford spends the rest of the novel patiently leading Lem (and us) to the wisdom of animal rights, with a dose of wide-eyed Marxism. There's a tedious earnestness to these passages, as though we've been trapped by one of those well-meaning volunteers on the street with a clipboard who wants to explain why our lives are immoral. Several times, the novel's humor evaporates, even the plot is suspended, and the colloquy begins: "What about medical research?" "Shouldn't we have the right to take advantage of our position on the food chain?" "Is cruelty motivated by capital less evil than other kinds of cruelty?" Liss is a vegan, and I'm deeply sympathetic to his cause, but while reading The Ethical Assassin, I was struck by what a shaky soapbox a novel makes. If he didn't shoot me first, Melford would explain that capitalist ideology has blinded me to the revolutionary possibilities of fiction, but there's no sense in trading off the power of storytelling -- particularly as well as Liss can do it -- for an ethical debate. Although I'm now determined to swear off buying encyclopedias from door-to-door salesmen, novels less polemical than The Ethical Assassin have brought me closer to Liss's point of view on eating meat. I started using free-range eggs after reading Rob Levandoski's Fresh Eggs, and I gave up pork altogether after Annie Proulx's That Old Ace in the Hole. Fiction should entice, not shove us, toward moral improvement. The key, as Melford knows, is in the execution. ~ Ron Charles is a senior editor of Book World.

Reviewed by Ron Charles
Copyright 2006, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (February 28, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 140006421X
• ISBN-13: 978-1400064212
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #310,597 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Cause Wrapped Up In A Novel, September 24, 2006

By	Brett Benner (Los Angeles, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Many people have commented on how this could be something that Carl Hiaasen could've penned, and I couldn't agree more. Set in Florida in the mid eighties the book begins with a seventeen year old encylopedia salesman named Lem Altick who, while pitching his product to a couple, witnesses their brutal slaying. Their assassin turns out to be a charming, intelligent guy whose agenda, or more appropriately 'mission', reveals itself later in the book in a didactic (to the point of bashing you over the head) way. However, before this, the book is ripe with a madcap plot and cast of off the wall characters that flavor Hiassen novels including, an oversexed redneck sheriff, and the surviving half of Siamese twins. The book is genuinely funny, and even though the shady dealings that are going on are not that unique, his characters are.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Liss masters a different genre, August 25, 2006

By	Cory D. Slipman (Rockville Centre, N.Y.) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

David Liss, so accomplished in his previous forte, the historical fiction, has penned a highly entertaining contemporary thriller that borders on the absurd in a style similar to Carl Hiassen.

The story evolves in the relating of the experiences of 17 year old South Floridian, Lem Altick. Lem, a bright and perceptive young man had been accepted to Columbia University. Circumstances arose which left him $30,000 short of the tuition required. He was attempting to make money by selling encyclopedias door to door, with a mostly motley crew presently canvassing the vicinity of Jacksonville.

Lem had apparently struck gold in a foul smelling trailer park known as Meadowbrook Grove. He was giving his best sales pitch to a sketchy looking couple named Karen and Bastard when suddenly someone bursts into the trailer and dispatches the couple with two gunshots to the head. This was Lem's startling introduction to the "ethical assassin", the bleached blonde, ghoulish looking Melford Kean.

Kean wishing to assure Lem's silence planted clues that would implicate him should Lem squeal. Kean, a rational psychotic was unwilling to harm Lem and recruited him to help him cover his tracks concerning his actions. We soon learn that Melford is a fervent animal rights activist and vegetarian. All through their interactions, Melford tries to sway Lem to his particular ideology.

Meadowbrook Grove, it turns out, is a separate principality governed by corrupt mayor and police chief Jim Doe, who had set up the trailer park as a speed trap. The mullet coiffed, dentally challenged Doe is also a front man for the local enterprises ensconsed in Meadowbrook Grove owned by Miami Vice attired, borderline pedophile B.B. Gunn. Gunn owns a foul smelling pig farm which also serves as a front for an illegal crystal meth lab. Gunn is also connected with the encyclopedia business, whose leader known as the Gambler (real name is Kenny Rogers) was a former leg breaker in Las Vegas.

The double homicide witnessed by Lem has potential to expose the whole slimy operation in Meadowbrook Grove. Liss navigates us through the odyssey of Lem Altick as he tries to stay out of harm's way while coming in contact with a bevy of bizarre characters.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Riveting and addictive, March 8, 2006

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

David Liss is full of surprises. His first three novels --- A CONSPIRACY OF PAPER, THE COFFEE TRADER and A SPECTACLE OF CORRUPTION --- are probably best classified as historical suspense thrillers, taking place in the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe. His new work, THE ETHICAL ASSASSIN, is much more modern in time and closer to home in space. Set in the 1980s in South Florida --- inland, not coastal --- Liss presents a tale of triple crosses and unforgettable, realistic characters in a narrative that, despite stumbling in a couple of spots, is riveting and addictive.

THE ETHICAL ASSASSIN, perhaps more than anything else, is a dark coming-of-age novel, THE CATCHER IN THE RYE for the post-Vietnam generation. Lem Altick is a recent high school graduate somewhere between a nebbish and a class president. His grades could get him into Columbia but are not quite good enough for financial aid; he made the track team, and while never finishing first in an event, he never dragged the team down. Altick's stepfather, a somewhat shadowy figure who we meet only in flashback, is half-in and half-out of his life. While he isn't quite comfortable playing the role of dad, he somehow gives Altick what little good advice he has to get him through life. Regardless, however, he isn't about to put Altick through school.

Several thousand dollars behind the tuition eight-ball, Altick becomes an itinerant encyclopedia salesman in south Florida, trolling the trailer parks and not-quite downtrodden neighborhoods in search of parents interested in investing in their children's education. Consistent with his life in general, Altick is a little unsure of himself but is pretty good at his job. He is, in fact, right in the middle of closing a sale when he is rather traumatically introduced to Melford Kean, the "ethical assassin" of the piece. Kean is by turns one of the most interesting elements of THE ETHICAL ASSASSIN and its largest bore; his motives and actions are often shrouded in mystery, while his occasional vegan and Marxist lectures is a real narrative killer.

Altick has a penchant for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and Kean has a way of getting him into and pulling him out of huge trouble, not the least of which is a triple murder and a whole lot of missing money. There are a number of dangerous characters in this book, including a crooked, dangerous cop who makes Harvey Keitel's character in Bad Lieutenant look like a model law enforcement officer; a quasi-businessman who is making a fateful plunge into pederasty; and a brooding psychopath who is a potential catalyst for destruction. All are tied into Florida's burgeoning crank industry, which is flying under the radar of legitimate law enforcement and making all involved wealthy beyond their wildest dreams. Altick unwillingly finds himself in the middle of a pack of wolves.

There's also a young lady to rescue, she being the understated yet irresistibly exotic Chitra Radhakrishkan, a fellow encyclopedia salesperson who is similarly disaffected while being a bit more sure of herself. And there is, of course, Kean. Altick is not certain if Kean is his salvation or his doom. Indeed, as we see near the end of THE ETHICAL ASSASSIN, he may well be both.

Liss, despite lapsing into occasional rhetoric, has created a novel that is by turns hilarious and horrifying. His setting and characters beg comparison with Carl Hiaasen; Liss, however, succeeds in making his characters bizarre and frightening without resorting to the sort of exaggeration that sometimes infects Hiaasen's work. Anyone who has spent quality time in South Florida will immediately recognize each and every individual who wanders onto and off the pages of THE ETHICAL ASSASSIN. His description of the processing of crystal methamphetamine is both dead-on accurate and enough to make anyone considering such an enterprise to look elsewhere for a vocation.

Liss, already an Edgar Award winner for A CONSPIRACY OF PAPER, may need to clear some space on his mantel for further accolades.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub