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Hit Man
Getting inside the mind of a hired killer; except for his profession he’s a nice guy
Hit Man is actually a series of short stories woven together by the main character into the novel form. The premise of the book is simple enough. There is this hit man named Keller—notice how the name insinuates the profession—who works for a man in White Plains, New York. Actually the reader never really gets to know the man, other than through the man’s surrogate, his assistant Dot. It is she who dispatches Keller on his many errand of death.
Death is the other character of this book. With Keller as his agent, death stalks the victims in these stories. One is an accountant gone afoul of the mob and in the witness protection program. Only his cover is blown and Keller is dispatched to dispense the mob’s punishment for the transgression. How Keller confronts the victim and carries out his contract will lead the reader on a path filled with twists and turns.
Most of the other contracts Keller is sent to dispatch are your typical bad guys who deserve their fate, but there are others for which death is a blessing they have come to welcome not to shun. In one such case, how Keller dispenses the coup de grace to a man whom Keller has come to befriend, admire, and respect is a wonderful piece of writing.
In Keller, Block has created a complex and very solitary man. He does have a romantic relationship with a woman name Andria. She answers his ad for a dog walker. How he comes to acquire a dog, named Nelson is another story involving a hit. Keller dispatches the master, but develops a strong attachment to the dead man’s dog.
After answering Keller’s ad for a dog walker, Andria over time just moves in, first to Keller’s house and then into his bed. These two each with their own emotional baggage are fated to become lovers and eventually to go their separate ways as dispassionately as they came together. Keller explains to Dot that he is angry at the supreme force that writes the script he is forced to play in life.
Lawrence Block is one of those prolific mystery writers that continue to churn out one hit novel after another. Block is unusual in that he write two different series each featuring different main characters. One is a dark brooding ex-cop named Mathew Scudder. The other is a lovable rogue and unreformed burglar named Bernie Rhodenbarr. As you might imagine the second series tend to be light-hearted spoofs while the novels in former series are dark, noir slice-of-real-life adventures. Keller, the main character in Hit Man is an amalgam of the two characters, a bit brooding at times, a bit funny at times. Block has won all the major mystery writing awards and his books always delivery an engaging read.
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