Short Review: Hit Man by Lawrence Block

John Keller is a hit man. He's also a regular kind of guy going through a midlife crisis. It is a bit bizarre to describe a book about murders and a paid assassin as being fun, but that's the word I used when I finished this book in 2005. Keller is a hoot! Recommended for fans of black humor.

I don't remember the plot well enough to write a summary, so here's one from Powell's:

Keller is a killer. Professional, cool, confident, competent, reliable. But he is also a complex person: Guarded and reclusive, icy and ruthlessly efficient, he is prone to loneliness and self-doubt, nightmares and career worries. He is known to his therapist as a "corporate troubleshooter," but Keller's real business is murder. He lives the life of a well-paid but lonely traveling businessman, a habitue of impersonal hotel rooms, bleak stretches of highways in rental cars, and anonymous eateries. A born New Yorker, he nonetheless fantasizes about the good life in the country, and in every place he visits, he dreams of setting up a home, away from the pressures and moral complexities his line of work entails.

Hit Man, the first in a series, was published by HarperTorch in 1998. Robert Forster read the audio skillfully, adding to my enjoyment of the book.

Hit Man at an Indie

Hit Man at Powell's
Hit Man at Amazon

Reading at the Beach is the host for this meme: Each week she invites us to spotlight a book whose title begins with the featured letter. This week it's H.