Product Description

Bob Dillon can't get a break. A down-on-his-luck exterminator, all he wants is his own truck with a big fiberglass bug on top -- and success with his radical new, environmentally friendly pest-killing technique. So Bob decides to advertise.

Unfortunately, one of his flyers falls into the wrong hands. Marcel, a shady Frenchman, needs an assassin to handle a million-dollar hit, and he figures that Bob Dillon is his man. Through no fault -- or participation -- of his own, this unwitting pest controller from Queens has become a major player in the dangerous world of contract murder.

And now Bob's running for his life through the wormiest sections of the Big Apple -- one step ahead of a Bolivian executioner, a homicidal transvestite dwarf, meatheaded CIA agents, cabbies packing serious heat ... and the world's number-one hit man, who might just turn out to be the best friend Bob's got.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #407500 in Books
• Published on: 2005-04-01
• Released on: 2005-03-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

From Library Journal
Fired from his job with a pest control company in Queens, New York, Bob Dillon starts his own business using his environmentally friendly technique: hybrid killer insects that eat cockroaches. Meanwhile, Marcel, a broker who contracts for assassins, is looking for a reliable newcomer to complete a million-dollar hit. He advertises and Bob responds, neither understanding the nature of the other's "exterminating" business. Very shortly thereafter, ten of the most dangerous hitpersons in the world descend on Queens, which is pretty dangerous itself and more than up to the challenge. Broadly satiric, extremely funny, and tailor-made for film (rights have already been sold to Warner Brothers), this is not exactly demanding reading, but it is fun and likely to be popular. A reasonable purchase for most public libraries.?Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, Va.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
A sweetly comic thriller that finally answers the age-old question: What if a sad-sack New York exterminator got his antennae crossed with the professionals who wipe out Homo sapiens? At his wit's (and checkbook's) end after walking off his job killing bugs with lethal cocktails, Bob Dillon schemes at his own unique approach to extermination: breeding predatory strains of insects who'll feast on termites and roaches without developing chemical-resistant new strains of pests or loading the planet with hazardous toxins. It's a plan with all the makings of an American success story, but it spins out of control when Bob's ad falls into the hands of a middleman who brokers assassinations and thinks Bob's sobriquet of ``the Exterminator'' is a veiled reference to his status as a hit man. Getting a faint whiff of the trouble in his future, Bob begs off the lucrative job he's offered. But when the victim is accidentally killed anyway, the middleman, assuming Bob's managed the job with unusual finesse, duly sends him his fee. So far, everything's as innocuous as the endless stream of double-entendres about extermination--except that (1) the UPS package with all that lovely money gets held up en route to Bob; (2) his wife and daughter, impatient with his uncompromisingly idealistic approach to pest control, walk out on him; and (3) the brother and murderer of a Bolivian druglord who wants to cover up his own crime screams that it was the work of the Exterminator and offers a $10 million bounty to whoever kills Bob--attracting all the top exterminators in the field. There's the subtle Chinese knife expert, the glamorous Frenchwoman, the parvenu Cowboy, the transvestite dwarf, and the melancholy, suicidal top man, whose unlikely friendship with his prospective target is the high point of this generally predictable tale. A first novel that's not sharply enough written to offer serious competition to Florida farceurs Hiaasen and Shames, but consistently sunny and good-humored. (Film rights to Warner Brothers) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Review
"...a clever and satisfying debut...offbeat, engaging, and very funny reading, it is wholly successful." -- Washington Post

"...this is one roach motel you’ll gladly check into." -- Time Out New York

"A sweetly comic thriller...consistently sunny and good-humored." -- Kirkus Reviews

"Pest Control is uber-contemporary, a hilarious, running-in-circles blend of droll farce and warped humor." -- Austin American-Statesman

"This debut novel is...goofy but great fun." -- Dallas Morning News

"This debut novel...hinges on a delightfully buggy idea that takes full comic advantage of New York City." -- Publishers Weekly

"[Pest Control is]...hilarious [and] wonderful...Fitzhugh is a funny man and Pest Control is a funny book." -- Elle

Customer Reviews

review of Pest Control
I am a fan of Fitzhugh, so the reader will gather that I go for zany humor. this is one of his best!

"I laughed until my head fell off" -- Barzan Ibrahim
If Robert Ludlum and Douglas Adams had wild homosexual monkey love (not that there's anything wrong with that) with each other before their individual demises, their bastard love child would have been Bill Fitzhugh.

More succinctly, Fitzhugh's novel Pest Control takes the best thriller elements of Ludlum's memory-addled spies and Adam's irreverent humo(u)r and sensibilities and hybrids them (to verb a noun) like so many assassin bugs in the Bugarariums of protagonist Bob Dillon.

In a world where the top 5 assassins know their individual ranks, and where there are still "exterminations" that need doing, hapless Dillon answers a classified ad in a drunken stupor. An ad to kill a man.

When that man dies, Bob's to blame, and everyone from a transvestite dwarf to the CIA gunning for him.

It's a fast page-turner, with at least one chuckle, smile or groaner on every page. Fortunately, the groaners are outnumbered by the smiles and chuckles at least 3-to-1.

Characters are all unique, in some cases (ok, all cases) bizarrely so, as in the case of Bob's daughter's best friend's mother, who has a circus fetish involving dwarfs, bags of peanuts, and... well, really, isn't that enough?

You have to come into this book with a sense of humor. Perhaps even an advanced sense of humor. Curmudgeons will flee this book faster than an cockroach from a flashlight.

Unique Idea, Brilliantly Done! Can't Wait to Read the Sequel!
Fitzhugh's debut novel Pest Control introduced the reading public to a new great author who proved through subsequent novels such as The Organ Grinders, Cross Dressing and Radio Activity to name but three, that he was neither a one hit wonder and that he can keep coming up with masterpiece quality surreal and unique ideas that will entertain until the final page. The next book to be published by Fitzhugh (assuming you are reading this review still when the latest published novel was Highway 61 Resurfaced) is apparently the sequel to Pest Control. Can't wait to get a copy of that!

In Pest Control Bob Dillon's aim is to become the ultimate exterminator, and fed up with the way his current employer is polluting the environment and only providing a short term band aid solution to cockroaches, silverfish and other pests he quits determined to start his own business. Only problem is Bob is in severe financial debt, behind on the rent and about to have his electricity cut off so his wife understandably is a bit annoyed with his hasty decision. Bob is undeterred though, knowing he is about to have a breakthrough with his environmentally sustainable cross bred Assassin Bugs that will be the next big thing, make him rich and more importantly allow him to afford a new truck with a really big fibreglass bug on top, maybe even two.

Meanwhile the world's top ranked assassin has turned down a hit on a target that really needs to be killed straight away so with other top ranked assassins not available in this short time frame underworld organiser of this sort of thing Marcel, reluctantly places an add in a New York newspaper. Professional Exterminator Needed ASAP $50K in a weekend. Drunk at the time Bob doesn't read between the lines, applies for the job then forgets all about until Marcel turns up on his doorstep. Marcel never figures out Bob is an insect exterminator and gives the terrified Bob the contract. When the target turns up dead, Bob's career as a highly paid hitman is underway. Unbeknownst to Bob, through coincidental deaths he is fast climbing the ranking of the best hitman for hire. It is not long before the CIA want to employ him, and one of his 'victim's' brothers puts a record price on Bob's head that brings the world's top assassins out of the wood work and after him.

This is one of the best books I have read in a long while. Also check out Fitzhugh's other work. If you like this sort of thing and want to read similar authors also check out Dave Barry's fiction novels or Carl Hiaasen as well.