By Lawrence Block
When my buddy, Dick Ritter, a voracious reader, recommended a book, I read it. Dick put me on to Lawrence Block's Bernie Rhodenbarr, the book seller by day, and burglar by night. After enjoying Bernie as a unique departure in the crime solver genre, I arrived at a Block creation that had lost the charm of the Rhodenbarr character. Block's name on a book cover lost its attraction That is why I just discovered Keller, the hit man in the fourth book in a series authored by Lawrence Block, "Hit and Run".
Block brings Keller alive in the first pages in a stamp collector's shop in a suburb of Des Moines, Iowa. By the time we learn that Keller didn't travel from his condo in New York to buy a set of Swedish stamps, we really like the guy, even though he is in the murder for hire business. After buying the stamps at a bargain price, Keller meets the go-between for a client that he only knows as "Call-me-Al". Sensing something "hinky" in the arrangements made by the go-between for a hit, Keller checks out of a motel room provided by Al, and puts up a paranoid screen between himself and the man who hired him for a contract killing. Good thinking, but too late. Keller has been set up as the fall guy for the assasination of the black Governor of Ohio.
Keller's face is on every TV set in the country. He can't go home to his condo in Manhattan, and his only contact to his former life, "Dot", has been apparently killed and incinerated in her house in White Plains, New YorK. HIs flight from one place to hole up after another is described by Block at his best, with character development of a fugitive avoiding modern technology providing tension and humor.
Then Keller gets lucky. In New Orleans, he saves Julia and rids the world of a heinous rapist. Block's hit man becomes not only a solid citizen, but even more likable as he falls in love with Julia and finds a new center of his life as a construction worker. The way Block tells it, the born again Keller makes complete sense.
It is also to Block's credit and his mastery of his genre, that he makes Keller's revenge on the "hairy-eared" go-between and "Call-me-Al" completely credible. The ending will warm your heart.
Block brings Keller alive in the first pages in a stamp collector's shop in a suburb of Des Moines, Iowa. By the time we learn that Keller didn't travel from his condo in New York to buy a set of Swedish stamps, we really like the guy, even though he is in the murder for hire business. After buying the stamps at a bargain price, Keller meets the go-between for a client that he only knows as "Call-me-Al". Sensing something "hinky" in the arrangements made by the go-between for a hit, Keller checks out of a motel room provided by Al, and puts up a paranoid screen between himself and the man who hired him for a contract killing. Good thinking, but too late. Keller has been set up as the fall guy for the assasination of the black Governor of Ohio.
Keller's face is on every TV set in the country. He can't go home to his condo in Manhattan, and his only contact to his former life, "Dot", has been apparently killed and incinerated in her house in White Plains, New YorK. HIs flight from one place to hole up after another is described by Block at his best, with character development of a fugitive avoiding modern technology providing tension and humor.
Then Keller gets lucky. In New Orleans, he saves Julia and rids the world of a heinous rapist. Block's hit man becomes not only a solid citizen, but even more likable as he falls in love with Julia and finds a new center of his life as a construction worker. The way Block tells it, the born again Keller makes complete sense.
It is also to Block's credit and his mastery of his genre, that he makes Keller's revenge on the "hairy-eared" go-between and "Call-me-Al" completely credible. The ending will warm your heart.
Review by Don Mac Brown
1 comment:
Thanks Don. I'll put this on my must read list.
Ken
Post a Comment