Product Description

A gripping insight into the life of a paid assassin from the author of the Matt Scudder mysteries The hit man of the title, Keller, tells his story episodically job by job. His tasks come as and when and with little warning. The call comes, he visits his paymaster to collect instructions, he travels to the hit's home city, does the job, returns. Often he likes the town he visits - enough even to look into real estate prices, but he always returns to New York City, to the chance of another job. Nothing changes until he begins visiting a therapist - a man who after a number of visits works out what our hero does for a living. He proposes a hit - he wants a woman killed. But in doing his job, Keller realises that he has been used and returns to take revenge on the therapist. The upshot is that in killing his therapist Keller orphans a dog. The dog needs a home, Keller provides 1, prompting the next major change in his life. When he goes away Keller needs a dog walker...finding a suitable candidate is easy enough, but before long she's resident in his flat and a whole new set of life rules are looking Keller in the face. Can he keep his job - can he keep his dog and his lover once they know what he does for a living?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #684047 in Books
• Published on: 2003-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
A man known only as Keller is thinking about Samuel Johnson's famous quote that "'patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel'... If you looked at it objectively, he had to admit, then he was probably a scoundrel himself. He didn't feel much like a scoundrel. He felt like your basic New York single guy, living alone, eating out or bringing home takeout, schlepping his wash to the Laundromat, doing the Times crossword with his morning coffee.... There were eight million stories in the naked city, most of them not very interesting, and his was one of them. Except that every once in a while he got a phone call from a man in White Plains. And packed a bag and caught a plane and killed somebody. Hard to argue the point. Man behaves like that, he's a scoundrel. Case closed." But Lawrence Block is such a delightfully subtle writer, one of the true masters of the mystery genre, that the case is far from closed. In this beautifully linked collection of short stories, we gradually put together such a complete picture of Keller that we don't so much forgive him his occupation as consider it just one more part of his humanity. After watching Keller take on cases that baffle and anger him into actions that fellow members of his hit-man union might well call unprofessional, we're eager to join him as he goes through a spectacularly unsuccessful analysis and gets fooled by a devious intelligence agent. We miss the dog he acquires and loses, along with its attractive walker. Like Richard Stark's Parker, Keller makes us think the unthinkable about criminals: that they might be the guys next door--or even us, under different pressures. For a small selection of the many Blocks in paperback, try Coward's Kiss, A Long Line of Dead Men, The Sins of the Fathers, Such Men Are Dangerous and especially When the Sacred Ginmill Closes.

About the Author
Lawrence Block was awarded the CWA Cartier Diamond Dagger in 2004. He is also a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America. He is the author of many novels and short stories and has won numerous awards for his mystery writing. He lives and works in New York City.

Customer Reviews

An Interesting Collection of Short Stories
Hit Man is a collection of short stories featuring the professional hitman Keller. Like most of Lawrence Block's other books Keller is based in New York, but due to the nature of his work he finds himself going off to different locations with each story which reminded me a little of Block's Evan Tanner series where he always starts off in New York before going somewhere exotic.

Kellers trips are not usually that exotic and stay within the United States. Each of the stories within the novel are good in their own right and there is no real stand out one as the best. But perhaps because of the fact that each one was a stand alone story that has been collected within this book, there always seems to be a lack of connection with each one and I think this prevents a connection being made to Keller by the reader as would happen with Matt Scudder, Bernie Rhodenbarr or Evan Tanner in Block's other novels.

Overall, it's a good collection of short stories that don't necesate reading all at once, although it is best to read them in sequence. I look forward to Block's next book Hit List also featuring Keller, but hope that it is an actual novel though featuring Keller, rather than another collection of short stories, as Keller shows a great deal of potential and could become as immortal as Block's other creations.

My first Lawrence Block
As its name infers the is the story of a killer. Keller is a hitman in private enterprise. He asks no questions accepting the commissions as they come. He is not an assassin for the state nor does he work for the 'mob'. His agent is a man we never meet or whose name we never learn. At the beginning of the book Keller is a man with few scruples he will kill anyone for whoever pays him. But life changes and after an interlude with an analyst, a brief affair and the ownership of a dog Keller begins to develop a slight conscience. Only slight of course he continues to do the work he is best fitted for but seems to discover more about the marks and the clients. This is a surprisingly easy book to read and most enjoyable.

An Edgy, Imaginative Look at a Man with a Frozen Soul
What's it like to be a hit man (assassin for hire)? Lawrence Block takes on that challenging assignment in these connected short stories about John Keller ("call me Keller") who is one of the best in the business. Do you want it to look accidental and occur in 48 hours? Keller's your man.

In the professional ranks, everyone has cut outs. Keller gets his orders for an old man in White Plains. That man in turn accepts orders from other trusted brokers. No one knows who paid for the hit.

The terms? Half down and half on success. The amounts are a little vague but it seems more than adequate because Keller can live a carefree life without other forms of employment by working on only 8-10 jobs a year.

The hits take Keller away from his Manhattan home (near the U.N.) to some pretty obscure places. Sometimes those visits are a distraction and he hangs around to imagine what an ordinary life would be in the vicinity.

But when it comes to his work, Keller is unsentimental, creative and quick.

But occasionally something comes up that confuses matters . . . like the time he is ordered by two targets to kill each other. What to do?

The strength of the story is in taking us out of our lives to see the world through Keller's eyes. The only person he can talk openly to is Dot, the old man's assistant. The rest of the time is pretty lonely. That leads him to become a dog owner, after a strange series of events. But he travels a lot, so someone has to walk the dog. Keller doesn't want to leave the dog in a kennel so he finds a dog walker. One thing leads to another. How close can Keller get to someone else?

Keller is aware that his work has taken over whoever he was when he started. And he doesn't quite understand the process . . . but wants to. This leads him to seek help with an analyst. But how much to tell the analyst? It's a conundrum straight out of The Sopranos.

As time passes, Keller's human side shows more and more. Where will it take him? Dot suggests he take up a hobby.

The writing is beautiful. The plots are intriguing and engaging.

There's one problem. Keller doesn't quite ring true to me. He feels like the construct of an intellectual exercise.

But if you don't mind that falsity in the book's core, you'll have fun.

I started the series with Hit Parade, the third book in the series. That was a mistake. Start with Hit Man instead. It's a better book, and you'll like Hit Parade better when you read it if you've already read Hit Man.