Hit List

Rating:
Summary: A worthy (and worth waiting for) follow-up to Hit Man
Review: A very funny (I actually broke out laughing a couple of times while reading Hit List on the subway [I live in NYC] on the way to work)and more of a novel than Hit Man. I loved the interaction between Dot (who I think is the funnier of the two) and Keller the key of the entire book. The astrology mumbo jumbo and murderous thumb thing was a little confusing to understand, but after realizing that it was a side bar or support for the plot, it made more sense. The reader should not try to analyze too much into the astrology sub-plot. The ending caught quite off guard. I was anticipating a confrontation, but who reads ( and enjoys a novel) already knowing how the thing ends? I can not wait for the next installment! Perhaps Keller does some international traveling?

Rating:
Summary: Audio version is a hit!
Review: I really enjoyed the author's narration of the book "Hit List". Lawrence Block's voice is perfectly suited for the quirky dialog, the sarcastic asides, and the off-the-wall thoughts that the book includes. In style, this book is more like the burgler books than it is the darker Matt Scudder books. This is a great tape for that next long car trip.

Rating:
Summary: HIT LIST
Review: Always wanted to be a contract killer? I thought not. Neither would I, but Lawrence Block's Keller, the protagonist of HIT MAN, has made another killing (or two) with the follow-up HIT LIST. Maybe I'm perverted, but this is the funniest book I've read since -- well, HIT MAN. Black humor abounds, along with superb irony and an askew perspective on the universe that is irresistible. The matter-of-fact Keller saves his passion for his stamp collecting and survives another midlife crisis as well as the murderous attempts of another hit man looking to improve the supply/demand picture. Surprisingly, no gore here, and if you can handle an amoral world, this is the book to read.

Rating:
Summary: In a word, boring.
Review: John Keller is a contract killer. However strange things begin to happen as he's on his contracts and it turns out he finally discovers that he's now the one who's the target of a hit man.

Sounds like a pretty interesting premise, doesn't it? It could have been a good book, but alas, it was not to be. The book truly is boring. Pages and pages of dialog but no story. As I was reading I kept wondering when the story was going to appear. It finally did, sort of, toward the back of the book. I still don't understand the ending.

Up until this book, Keller has only appeared in short stories. I know there was another book called "Hit Man" but as most long-time Block readers realized, that book was simply a compilation of all of the previous Keller short stories loosely held together with filler. Maybe Keller doesn't lend himself to a full-length book. This book, "Hit List", read more like a series of vignettes (which could easily have been short stories) rather than a novel.

I've read Lawrence Block for a long time. This book and his previous Burglar book have startling similarities in that they seem to offer nothing but cutesy dialog. Story seems to be lacking. I hope Mr. Block will redeem himself soon by writing a decent story, hopefully a Matthew Scudder novel.

Rating:
Summary: Block is written out
Review: Larry Block has some characters and novels that are fun. But HIT LIST is thrown together with banter that is useless to the story and only on the page to take up space. A best selling mystery novelist told me that Block will continue this way until someone calls him on it. Well, I'm calling him on it. He needs to write a tightly woven story, and do the work. In a previousBurglar novel, he just got lazy and switched points of view at the end to gain surprise. In HIT LIST, he just seems to be yawning at the kitchen table and throwing down a bunch of dialogue that any novice COULD do but wouldn't lower himself to do. Block is a "Grand Master" of the Mystery Writers of America. He should either step down, or step up and work a little harder.

Rating:
Summary: Hit and miss
Review: This book is a bit weird. I wanted to give up so many times - because it was BORING - but bravely soldiered on - because INTERESING bits and pieces kept on popping up.

Still, it's more a miss than a hit, and endless conversations between Dot and Keller reminded me of Waiting for Godot. Was there another point to their dialogue, except to drive everyone crazy? I don't know.

Can't say I recomend it fully, can't say I don't recomend if fully. Hence 3 stars.

Rating:
Summary: Pleasant but Not that Interesting a Person
Review: Block is certainly a versatile and prolific writer. This new book relies strongly (90%+) on dialogue between a man and a woman in which much of the man's "contributions" to their conversations seem to come from being quite distracted, he's always asking "what", "huh" or making off the wall and ludicrous assumptions. She patiently puts up with his conversational lack of focus. He's certainly not very sympathetic in that he is an assassin for hire. He's clever but I can't imagine any situation (regardless of what I thought he did for a living) in which I'd want to spend time with him. There are other fictional assassins who are much more interesting as individuals. The premise of the story about competition in the assassin business certainly can't be taken very seriously. I wanted the book to be over by the half way point. This one is below the midway mark in Block's long list of books.

Rating:
Summary: Not your ordinary killer
Review: This is an entertaining sequel to 'Hit Man', which was also a lot of fun. And that's what John Keller is. Not a savage bloodletter, but a very professional, rather quiet killer-for-hire. He's even an avid philatelist. He has no close friends and no longterm romantic interests ("loose ends," you know). A nice guy. If you met him, you'd like him -- as long as the meeting was social and you weren't his next contract.

Especially in his long-running Matthew Scudder series, Block is known as a "thinking man?s" mystery writer and this new series (if two books can be a "series") continues that theme. Keller thinks about what he does for a living; in the first book, he even goes into analysis for awhile (which is spectacularly unsuccessful). A caution: If you want a thrill-a-minute plot, Block doesn't provide it, not here. These are more of an extended character study . . . but a very good, very absorbing one.

Rating:
Summary: Great story telling, but lacks soul.
Review: Lawrence Block creates a book length version of the hit man character found in an earlier compendium of short stories. Keller, and his partner Dot, do jobs across the country. And they are jobs, or work, and just that.

Block is a master story teller. He weaves small details, love stories, jury duty, and the niggling facts of every day life into the story of a man who has found his place in life, killing other people. The point seems to be that in a complex society full of millions of niches, this man has found his natural place, killing other people for money. And doesn't that make for a fun interesting read. Even the conflict with another hit man is less than enthralling -- just well told.

The problem I have is this: Keller is written as the most boring of hit men, his small quirks barely rippling the waters of his placid life. He is the Mr. Whipple of killers, white bread and potatoes with white sauce. The mesmerizing style and taut writing of Block catch you up and you love the read, but you are left wanting something heavier, spicier, with more oomph.

Block is clearly writing against the grain of his character for effect. He never describes Keller's deadliness, or his murders. The book and the character remind me of The Accidental Tourist. The book is a matter of fact, often funny, but ultimately soulless book about a hit man.

If Block's Scudder novels are often full meals, this is a snack book, and a sorta good one.

Rating:
Summary: A stunning disappointment
Review: It hurts to write this review -- I love Block's work, and have loved it for years -- but HIT LIST is just an awful book.

Other reviewers have commented on the endless, inane banter, and they're right: while Block always sprinkles amusing verbal jokes into his dialogue, here he has dialogues that go on for pages and contain nothing but one pun or joke after another. Though nearly unbearable, this might just possibly have worked in one of his burglar novels, which are basically comedies. But there is no way it could work in a Keller story, since Keller is a serious (almost tragic) character.

Then, too, there is the subject of padding: entire scenes have no bearing on the plot. Unbelievably, Block spends pages on the details of the deliberations of a jury Keller happens to sit on when he's called to jury duty. And it's not even an interesting case -- something about a stolen VCR, with no bearing on the rest of the book.

Then there's the ending: you're waiting for a twist, but what Block comes up with is almost pointless. It feels as though he got to the end of the book without knowing how to finish it, so he tacked on a two-page "explanation" and sent it to his publisher.

Then there's the writing: in HIT MAN, you tolerated that some pieces of information were repeated from chapter to chapter, since each chapter had originally appeared as a stand-alone short story. Here, there is no excuse for it. In chapter 4 you're told something like "Maggie, whom Keller met at an art gallery, was a beautiful woman" -- why in the world say this when the reader *knows* where Keller met her, having just read it in chapter 3??? Dot keeps asking Keller "Did you buy any stamps?" and saying "Well, now you can buy some more," as though Block didn't realize that he had already used these lines of dialogue earlier.

The introduction of seriously-taken astrology and palmistry is another annoyance -- it's just not appropriate in this character's world. But the problem is rampant: Keller is not the same wonderful character here that he was in the first book. He's just a very different character this time, and not in ways that are improvements.

What's going on? TANNER ON ICE was very funny in spots but close to incoherent in terms of plot, with a weak "that's it?" ending. EVERYBODY DIES was not terrible, but it was definitely a weak Scudder novel. Block has been an amazingly good writer for so long -- has he lost his talent completely? It's painful to watch a favorite writer lose his ability, and I have a bad feeling that's what we're starting to see...