Search - Hit List (Keller, Bk 2)

The hit man discovers he's on a hit list. Plot sounds familiar, but it's much more than that. Very good story, good humor. Lawrence Block is a master.

This is a wonderful book. Just pretend for a moment that it's just another job for another middle class guy--being a hit man. That's the premise behind this amazing novel by Lawrence Block, a master of funny yet hard-boiled mysteries. This one is unique. (There is another one in the series from a few years ago and the third one is due out in hardcover in the fall of 2006. I'm really looking forward to number 3.)

John Keller, whom Block introduced in Hit Man, is a killer for hire, with a difference. He's thoughtful, even broody, tends to take a liking to some of the towns where he goes to do his work, dreams of perhaps settling down in one of them one day and collects stamps in his spare time, of which there's plenty.

I wasn't as pleased with this book as I have been with other Lawrence Block novels, and it had such potential, too. Keller, our hit man, seems to be a likeable sort, but the storyline wanders away from the plot to discuss, ad nauseum, his stamp collecting. The conversations with his contact person, Dot, becomes monotous in their exchanges of short, one-line sentences, back and forth, back and forth, and back and forth, without saying a whole heck of a lot of anything, such as:

Keller: "But I think sometimes a person senses things."
Dot: "And you sensed something was wrong."
Keller: "And that something was going to happen."
Dot: "Keller, something always happens."
Keller: "Something violent."
Blah, blah, blah...

I wanted to slap them both and say, "Get on with it!!" Action was slow and rather boring. Some things weren't explained, like, who the old man that lived upstairs in the house was and how Dot got involved in doing what she does. The reader is left frustrated and hanging throughout the book. Sorry Mr. Block, this book rates only two stars.

Good book, enjoyable series.