Hit Man by Lawrence Block

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
February 1998

Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Lawrence Block has been awarded every major mystery prize. With more than 50 published works, he is considered by many to be the ultimate voice in mystery; The Wall Street Journal calls him "one of the very best writers working the beat." Block's latest novel, Hit Man, is already winning praise from critics and fans alike.

During his incredibly prolific career, Block has created a memorable cast of recurring characters who have mesmerized his legions of fans. The latest addition to Block's list of memorable characters is Keller, a cool, confident, competent, and reliable hit man.

A precise professional, Keller, a native New Yorker, weaves in and out of assignments and personae with remarkable ease. Always armed with an alias and plausible stories when he is dispatched to remote locations, Keller epitomizes the professional hit man. But Keller does stand out. A complicated man, guarded and reclusive, Keller is prone to loneliness, self-doubt, and career worries; he is sort of a wistful murderer. He may be a killer — and this becomes quite obvious as we accompany him on his rounds — but he is also an all-too-human being.

Hit Man clearly displays the qualities that distinguish Lawrence Block's award-winning fiction — the intelligence, the wicked cleverness, the outright humor. But above all, Block writes with the true-grit sense of humanity that has become his trademark.

From the Publisher

Keller is your basic urban Lonely Guy.He makes a decent wage, lives in a nice apartment.Works the crossword puzzle. Watches a little TV. Until the phone rings and he packs a suitcase, gets on a plane, flies halfway across the country...and kills somebody. It's a living. But is it a life? Keller's not sure. He goes to a shrink, but it doesn't work out the way he planned. He gets a dog, he gets a girlfriend. He gets along.

Boston Herald

Leave it to Lawrence Block to write a knock-out novel about a hit man staggering through a midlife crisis. . .Block deliversa one-two punch of humor and introspection. . .Along the way, readers will find themselves analyzing why they are eager forthe killer to discover inner peace.

San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle

An odd and appealing combination of the hard-boiled, the surreal and the whimsical. Keller grows on us, story by story. ..But he is also a cold-blooded killer. . .Unlike Keller, who likes movies where you can tell who the good guys are, Blocksfans can grateful for a book in which you can't always tell which is which.

NY Times Book Review

A killer named Keller reacts to a midcareer crisis by becoming involved in the lives of his intended targets, in a series of murderous adventures that are both funny and full of rue.

Over My Dead Body.com -

I think it's one of Block's best....Keller is having an existential crisis. He wonders if his work defines him, if he chose the job or the job chose him. Can he be happy as anything other than a killer?....This one's worth the trip into the dark corners of Keller's soul. A great book.

Product Details

• Table of Contents
• Interviews & Essays
• Read an Excerpt

Table of Contents

Interviews & Essays

Lawrence Block: So far so good. Glad to be here.

Lawrence Block: I'll be touring in July and probably in October, but I don't know where or when. I'd like to get to Iowa one of these times. And no, Jim Faber's not based on anybody in particular.

Lawrence Block: Hi, Sergio! Great to talk to you like this. I may be coming to Brazil in the fall. My publishers there are trying to fix a date. Hope so.

Lawrence Block: I won't even be going this year. Lynne and I will be on a cruise; we booked it before I found out I was nominated for an Edgar.

Lawrence Block: Thanks, Rebecca. I have a book called WRITE FOR YOUR LIFE that I want to revise and reprint, but don't know when I'll get around to it.

Lawrence Block: Best way to meet me is at a signing or reading. That's when I'm accessible to fans; otherwise, I keep my private life private.

Lawrence Block: I just love the energy of New York. I travel as much as I can. but this is home. Far as future plans, I have TANNER ON ICE coming out in July, EVERYBODY DIES in October. And I don't know what I'll write next, but it will probably be a Burglar book.

Lawrence Block: Could be. HIT MAN has been optioned, and we're very close to a deal for a Scudder movie.

Lawrence Block: I wrote a story about Keller, and I found I kept having more to say about him. I hope there'll be more stories in the future.

Lawrence Block: Thanks so much! I'm usually fondest of the most recent book, and right now I'm very high on EVERYBODY DIES.

Lawrence Block: Write what you want to. Write the way you want to write it.

Lawrence Block: Not too much, I don't think. I use email a lot but don't surf the Web a great deal.

Lawrence Block: The thing about Scudder is I never know what he's going to do next. And if I did I wouldn't tell you. . .

Lawrence Block: It seems very natural for me to write about very different characters. But I'm a pretty weird guy. . .

Lawrence Block: Nothing easier. Just email me your name and postal mailing address at LawBloc@aol.com and keep me up to date on address changes. Newsletter's free, and it comes via snail mail.

Lawrence Block: Very different, and the book's different in tone, more ironic.

Lawrence Block: Why, thanks, Georgina! Had it since mid-'94.

Lawrence Block: Thanks!

Lawrence Block: Possible feature -- the deal's in the formative stages.

Lawrence Block: Hard to answer that. In EIGHT MILLION WAYS TO DIE, Scudder keeps noticing the crimes in the tabloids; each time I wrote a chapter, I just listed ones that had been in the paper the day before.

Lawrence Block: I've known a few cops over the years. My experiences with the NYPD have all been positive ones.

Lawrence Block: Well, you can't make an omelet without breaking the occasional egg. But I've been sorry that I killed Abel Crowe, the fence in THE BURGLAR WHO STUDIED SPINOZA. I miss him. But let's keep one thing straight. I didn't kill him. The murderer killed him.

Lawrence Block: It would give too much away. Let's just say it was ingenious.

Lawrence Block: Not difficult at all. From the second story, I realized I was writing a novel on the installment plan, and it worked out quite easily.

Lawrence Block: Well, short stories provide something closer to instant gratification. There's always an aspect of trench warfare in a novel.

Lawrence Block: I don't keep count. And a lot depends on how busy I am.

Lawrence Block: Not too.

Lawrence Block: EVERYBODY DIES, coming in October, is indeed a Scudder novel.

Lawrence Block: Not too much these days.

Lawrence Block: If you find out, lemme know. . .

Lawrence Block: Haven't read it yet, but I'll be eager to. HIT MAN is dedicated to him, you know.

Lawrence Block: Why, I am, Nicole. Thought you knew that.

Lawrence Block: Sure, when I'm in the neighborhood. Good place.

Lawrence Block: Yes, I do. He's a sort of Urban Lonely Guy of assassins, and I like his attitude.

Lawrence Block: I don't know what let me know this was something I could do, but it happened in 11th grade when I started having fun with my assignments in English class. That's also around the time when I started reading contemporary American literature, and the idea of writing came to me, and I knew it was what I wanted to do. And within a couple of years I was doing it professionally.

Lawrence Block: It sure beats working for a living.

Lawrence Block: Couldn't happen. They live in two entirely different worlds. I've wanted to have Bernie and Donald E. Westlake's Dortmunder get together, but Don's too busy; I can't get him to play.

Lawrence Block: I didn't invent that, but I'm fond of it.

Lawrence Block: Not really. There have been times I wanted to, but they're gone.

Lawrence Block: I travel a lot. Or, as an alternative, I sink into an abysmal depression.

Lawrence Block: Nolte's not a bad choice at all. And what I use most in writing is imagination, and I can't really explain how that works.

Lawrence Block: Well, what shall I say? It's dark and violent. How's that?

Lawrence Block: Sue's a good friend. And, as you've already found out, a splendid writer.

Lawrence Block: I don't rewrite a great deal, unless something goes wrong. If all goes well, my first draft is what you wind up reading.

Lawrence Block: Well, I'd like to. I always have a good time in Texas, and I've been at Murder by the Book in Houston many times.

Lawrence Block: Hey, thanks very much!

Lawrence Block: How often I write short stories depends on what ideas I happen to get. I have a story in the new issue of Ellery Queen, and I've got one scheduled in their Christmas issue. And I hope to do more.

Lawrence Block: You know, I really hate to say anything nice about another writer, because all it means is I'll make enemies of all the people I don't mention. That said, I'll say that I have a lot of admiration for Harlan Coben. He has strange taste in neckties, however.

Lawrence Block: Never when I'm working. I just find it intrusive. I like jazz and classical music and country and folk, but not when I'm working.

Lawrence Block: Mick Ballou has a major role in EVERYBODY DIES.

Lawrence Block: This was fun. I'll just close by reminding people that my newsletter, which is free and worth every penny, comes out once or twice a year; just email me at LawBloc@aol.com and give your name and mailing address, as it's only available by snail mail.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

Keller flew United to Portland. He read a magazine on the leg from JFK to O'Hare, ate lunch on the ground, and watched the movie on the nonstop flight from Chicago to Portland. It was a-quarter to three local time when he carried his hand luggage off the plane, and then he had only an hour's wait before his connecting flight to Roseburg.

But when he got a look at the size of the plane he walked over to the Hertz desk and told them he wanted a car for a few days. He showed them a driver's license and a credit card and they let him have a Ford Taurus with thirty-two hundred miles on the clock. He didn't bother trying to refund his Portland-to-Roseburg ticket.

The Hertz clerk showed him how to get on 1-5. Keller pointed the car in the right direction and set the cruise control three miles an hour over the posted speed limit. Everybody else was going a few miles an hour faster than that, but he was in no hurry, and he didn't want to invite a dose look at his driver's license. It was probably all right, but why ask for trouble?

It was still light out when he took the off ramp for the second Roseburg exit. He had a reservation at the Douglas Inn, a Best Western on Stephens Street. He found it without any trouble. They had him in a ground-floor room in the front, and he had them change it to one a flight up in the rear.

He unpacked, showered. The phone book had a street map of downtown Roseburg, and he studied it, getting his bearings, then tore it out and took it with him when he went out for a walk. The little print shop was only a few blocks away on Jackson, two doors in from thecomer, between a tobacconist and a photographer with his window full of wedding pictures. A sign in Quik Print's window offered a special on wedding invitations, perhaps to catch the eye of bridal couples making arrangements with the photographer.

Quik Print was dosed, of course, as were the tobacconist and the photographer and the credit jeweler next door to the photographer and, as far as Keller, could tell, everybody else in the neighborhood. He didn't stick around long. Two blocks away he found a Mexican restaurant that looked dingy enough to be authentic. He bought a local paper from the coin box out front and read it while he ate his chicken enchiladas. The food was good, and ridiculously inexpensive. If the place were in New York, he thought, everything would be three or four times as much and there'd be a line in front.

The waitress was a slender blonde, not Mexican at all. She had short hair and granny glasses and an overbite, and she sported an engagement ring on the appropriate finger, a diamond solitaire with a tiny stone. Maybe she and her fiance had picked it out at the credit jeweler's, Keller thought. Maybe the photographer next door would take their wedding Pictures. Maybe they'd get Burt Engleman to print their wedding invitations. Quality printing, reasonable rates, service you can count on.

In the morning he returned to Quik Print and looked in the window. A woman with brown hair was sitting at a gray metal desk, talking on the telephone. A man in shirtsleeves stood at a copying machine. He wore hom-rimmed glasses with round lenses and his hair was cropped short on his egg-shaped head. He was balding, and that made him look older, but Keller knew he was only thirty-eight.

Keller stood in front of the jeweler's and pictured the waitress and her fiance picking out rings. They'd have a double-ring ceremony, of course, and there would be something engraved on the inside of each of their wedding bands, something no one else would ever see. Would they live in an apartment? For a while, he decided, until they saved the down payment for a starter home. That was the phrase you saw in real estate ads and Keller liked it. A starter home, something to practice on until you got the hang of it.

At a drugstore on the next block, he bought an unlined paper tablet and a black felt-tipped pen. He used four sheets of paper before he was pleased with the result. Back at Quik Print, he showed his work to the brown-haired woman.

"My dog ran off," he explained. "I thought I'd get some flyers printed, post them around town."

LOST DOG, he'd printed. PART GER. SHEPHERD. ANSWERS TO SOLDIER. CALL 555-1904.

"I hope you get him back," the woman said. "Is it a him? Soldier sounds like a male dog, but it doesn't say."

"It's a male," Keller said. "Maybe I should have specified."

"It's probably not important. Did you want to offer a reward? People usually do, though I don't know if it makes any difference. If I found somebody's dog, I wouldn't care about a reward. I'd just want to get him back with his owner."

"Everybody's not as decent as you are," Keller said. 'Maybe I should say something about a reward. I didn't even think of that." He put his palms on the desk and leaned forward, looking down at the sheet of paper. "I don't know," he said. "It looks kind of homemade, doesn't it? Maybe I should have you set it in type, do it right. What do you think?"

"I don't know," she said. "Ed? Would you come and take a look at this, please?"

The man in the horn-rims came over and said he thought a hand-lettered look was best for a lost-dog notice. "It makes it more personal," he said. "I could do it in type for you, but I think people would respond to it better as it is. Assuming somebody finds the dog, that is."