The Butcher's Boy

Rating:
Summary: Competent but Unsatisfying
Review: "The Butcher's Boy" is fairly good, but I have trouble understanding where all the high praise comes from. The action scenes are well written - particularly the part where Maureen makes love to the protaganist while coldly planning to murder the unacknowledged intruder in their hotel room - but they're not as suspenseful as those in, say, "The Marathon Man". And there doesn't seem to be a lot of intrigue or building suspense. The Butcher's Boy plots and kills for revenge, but it's not especially clear that he needs to do it to survive. So with that somewhat unsympathetic premise, the reader can be lost. I was, anyway.

This is not to say a story can't work if the protaganist is amoral. It can; the Patricia Highsmith "Ripley" novels are a good example; the original film "Get Carter" with Michael Caine is an even better one (in that story, Jack Carter's motive for bloody vengeance is all too clear). But one murderous execution after execution without any sort of purpose can make the reader feel rather empty.

Rating:
Summary: The Beginning of Something Amazing
Review: Bravo Mr Perry. I started here and have read all of his books. I am so totally stunned and impressed by his writing style. He paints pictures not in flowery language yet you feel you are in very real situations. I am simply hypnotised by his ability to make his characters feel like they could be part of your life.
Mr.Perry's themes vary book to book. We get follow this particular character in subsequesnt books, but Perry is not limited to one arena.

Rating:
Summary: Terrific Unusual Thriller
Review: Butcher's Boy grabs you from the start and keeps you going. The thing that makes this book so compelling is that you end up rooting for the "bad" guy.

The protagonist of this book is a ruthless professional killer who has earned the nickname that is the book's title. Nonetheless, you end up hoping he'll get away from the even more awful people who hire him, and the police (remember they're supposed to be the "good" guys).

Perry's descriptions of settings and characters in this, and all of his books, are excellent. This one is embellished by a tight plot and a point of view that is different from other novels.

I wish I hadn't given my copy away as the book is now hard to find. Perhaps a publisher will re-issue it; or it'll be made into a movie (hopefully a good one) that will bring it back on the shelves.

Rating:
Summary: Pure Escapist Fare
Review: BUTCHER'S BOY, Perry's first, introduces the reader to his signature style, characters with keen self awareness and superlative observational skills. They are able to anticipate the behavior and actions of others based upon their knowledge of human nature. Perry has carved himself a niche that is both insightful and entertaining. Read this and all his others for pure escapist fare.

Rating:
Summary: Read it, whisper about it, and don't admit you like it!
Review: Guys read this book, and mention it to their close friends, yet don't quite understand why they like it. Perry touches us at our internal archetypes: We want to be like the Butcher's Boy, with our own strongly held personal morality that helps us survive in a dangerous world, and still be able to live in our skins, in our own houses.

Rating:
Summary: Flat
Review: I found the book to be rather flat. The motives of the unnamed assasin were perfunctory, the heroine was ineffective and I don't think the character of Maureen served any puprose--how did she help the assasin or earn her pay?

In the Introduction, Michael Connelly describes feeling sympathy for the assasin. I did not feel any. The assasin was cold and unsympathetic. Also, by referring to the assasin only as "he", Perry created some pronoun landmines in spots when he tried to juggle two he's and it wasn't clear which he was he (see how confusing that is?).

Rating:
Summary: Flat
Review: I found the book to be rather flat. The motives of the unnamed assasin were perfunctory, the heroine was ineffective and I don't think the character of Maureen served any puprose--how did she help the assasin or earn her pay?

In the Introduction, Michael Connelly describes feeling sympathy for the assasin. I did not feel any. The assasin was cold and unsympathetic. Also, by referring to the assasin only as "he", Perry created some pronoun landmines in spots when he tried to juggle two he's and it wasn't clear which he was he (see how confusing that is?).

Rating:
Summary: OHMYGAWD! ONE OF THE BEST EVER!
Review: I read SLEEPING DOGS and really enjoyed it. Then I spent two years trying to find THE BUTCHER'S BOY in used bookstores (before I owned a computer). Stumbled across it at a yard sale for 50 cents. Couldn't put it down after I started reading it. Stayed up until daybreak to finish it. This is one of the best books I've ever read (and I've read a lot)! The other reviews are all accurate. If you like mystery/action/suspense, buy it. But don't start reading it until you have the time to finish it. You won't put it down. SLEEPING DOGS is great too, but a sequel is a sequel is a sequel. METZGER'S DOG (not a sequel) is also quite good--it's more of a comedy and not on the same level as THE BUTCHER'S BOY.

Rating:
Summary: Perry's first, and best
Review: I read this book in one sitting, something I've haven't done since. It always amazed me that a movie hasn't been made out out this great story line: Hit-man on the run, young female FBI agent and Mafia hit-men on his trail. What fascinated me was the detailed picture that Perry paints on the need of a person in a business such as the 'Butcher's Boy' to blend into the background and, by all means, NOT get noticed: what clothing to wear, what food and drink to order at a restaurant, how and where to walk. He's carried this on somewhat in his later books, which are all very good, but this is, I believe, his masterpiece.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Read
Review: I thought it was just me! I see a lot of these reviews are describing "The Butcher's Boy" as a page-turner, a novel they couldn't put down, a book they inhaled in 4 hours! That was my precise reaction: "Thank heaven I've found another author of page-turners!" It doesn't happen to me often enough.

What I can't figure out is how Perry writes with such enjoyable economy and still manages to create that magic of gluing the reader to the text. If you are a writer yourself, this question is worth getting to the bottom of.

A mesmerizing tale of a professional killer going about the business of evading his pursuers, "The Butcher's Boy" is a novel that will send you in search of more Thomas Perry books.