Hit Man

by Lawrence Block (Author)

• Used

  Hardcover
  1998

  $3.39

  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?

• Used

  Paperback
  1999

  $3.39

  Keller is a hit man who finds his life turned upside down when a job means more than the one allotted death...Keller is an assassin - he is paid by the job and works for a mysterious man who nominates hits and passes on commissions from elsewhere. Keller goes in, does the job, gets out: usually at a few hours' notice. Often Keller's work takes him out of New York to other cities, to pretty provincial towns that almost tempt him into moving to the woods and the lake shores ...Almost, but not quite. But then a job goes wrong in a way Keller has never imagined and it leaves him with a big problem. Finding himself with an orphan on his hands, Keller's job begins to interfere with his carefully guarded life. And once you let someone in to your life, they tend to want to know what you do when you're away. And killing for a living, lucrative though it is, just doesn't find favour with some folks.