Product Description

Keller is friendly. Industrious. A bit lonely, sometimes. If it wasn't for the fact that he kills people for a living, he'd be just your average Joe. The inconvenient wife, the troublesome sports star, the greedy business partner, the vicious dog, he'll take care of them all, quietly and efficiently. If the price is right.

Like the rest of us, Keller's starting to worry about his retirement. After all, he's not getting any younger. (His victims, on the other hand, aren't getting any older.) So he contacts his "booking agent," Dot, up in White Plains, and tells her to keep the hits coming. He'll take any job, anywhere. His nest egg needs fattening up.

Of course, being less choosy means taking greater risks—and that could buy Keller some big trouble. Then again, in this game, there are plenty of opportunities for some inventive improvisation . . . and a determined self-motivator can make a killing.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #187848 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-01
• Released on: 2007-05-29
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 336 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Block's assassin, John Keller (Hit Man; Hit List), returns in these loosely linked, well-crafted vignettes of the protagonist on assignment, blithely but expertly eliminating a grab bag of targets: a philandering pro baseball player, a jockey in a fixed horse race, two women who hire him to put down a neighbor's dog, a Cuban exile and more. Manhattan-based Keller works through his agent, Dot, who assigns murders from her home just north in White Plains.Keller, a loner by temperament and trade, has an easy camaraderie with Dot. The two entrepreneurial colleagues strike a casual tone in conversation—but they're discussing death (sometimes in gory detail). With dry wit, Block tracks the pursuits of the morally ambiguous Keller, who hunts rare, pricey stamps for his extensive collection when he's not "taking care of business." Four-time Shamus- and Edgar-winner Block has the reader queasily rooting for the killer as well as the victims, unsettling the usual point of identification and assumptions about right and wrong. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Keller is a hit man. Like all careers, it has its challenges, some imposed by circumstance, others generated by introspection. For example, Keller accepts a contract on an aging baseball star. The job will be easy, but Keller complicates it with reasons that can only be categorized as "inside baseball." There's another job in which he's assigned to kill a jockey, but only if the man wins a fixed race. Since Keller is all about the money, he figures a way to turn the situation into a win-win for himself. He also ponders a retirement in which he will abandon his Manhattan lifestyle for a trailer in the southwestern desert. Block, the best-selling author of the Matt Scudder and Bernie Rhodenbarr series, indulges himself when he dusts off Keller. The humor is even more deadpan than usual, and the vignettes (Keller working as a food-service volunteer after 9/11) are quirky diversions. Oddly, Keller the hit man is also a kind of everyman, pondering such universal questions as, Does this assignment compromise my ethics? Will I ever get another job? Block's legion of fans will savor his subtle wit, his consummate narrative skills, and his idiosyncratic method of celebrating the lives of working folks in America. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author

Lawrence Block is one of the most widely recognized names in the mystery genre. He has been named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America and is a four-time winner of the prestigious Edgar and Shamus Awards, as well as a recipient of prizes in France, Germany, and Japan. He received the Diamond Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association—only the third American to be given this award. He is a prolific author, having written more than fifty books and numerous short stories, and is a devoted New Yorker and an enthusiastic global traveler.

Customer Reviews

Force of nature--worth 4.5*s IMHO
This book is a set of 9 chronologically sequential, loosely connected, stories about John Keller, thoughtful, stamp-collecting hit man. It includes great dialog--esp. the repartee between Keller & his broker Dot with considerable dry humor & punishment. A few of the stories were previously published separately in mystery anthologies. While the book jacket calls this a novel, it's a real stretch to call it that. It has no table of contents--so here's one for you:
page 1--Keller's Designated Hitter;
p. 29--Keller by a Nose;
p. 51--Keller's Adjustment;
p. 127--Proactive Killer;
p. 163--Keller the Dogkiller;
p. 197--Keller's Double Dribble;
p. 235--Quotidian Keller;
p. 275--Keller's Legacy;
p. 291--Keller and the Rabbits.
As you can see, the length varies quite a bit as do the tone of each one. Several are about sports: baseball, basketball, horse racing, & golf. Keller also has his own sense of ethics--e.g. rooting for his victim to complete his 3000th hit & 400th home run--a constant source of discussion with Dot. Many of the stories involve the playing out of this as Keller feels his way into the actual hit which doesn't always turn out the way the buyer intended. In this collection (the 3rd in the series), he & Dot also pursue retirement planning, and there's much more detail (esp. in one particular story) on stamp collecting (Quotidian Keller). All in all, it's an intriguing book (though Block doesn't go very far into the lives of his characters herein), even including Keller's unpredictable response to the 911 attack on the Twin Towers. Like the movie/T.V. show MASH or Hogan's Heroes, it's amazing how a creative writer can turn death/destruction into entertainment & even humor.

Is Keller a sociopath?
As I began to read HIT PARADE, I had an eerie feeling I'd read it before. But that couldn't be because the copyright said 2006. Then I found a proviso up above the copyright: Portions of this book had appeared in somewhat different form in MURDER AT THE RACE TRACK and TRANSGRESSIONS, both of which I'd read. So that almost ruined the book for me. But eventually Block does add some new stories.

HIT PARADE is episodic in nature, essentially a bunch of short stories. Block's main accomplishment is his portrayal of Keller, the sensitive hit man. His only confidant is his agent Dot. At one point, prior to this edition, she helps him find a hobby, collecting stamps. He had no idea what to do with all of the money he was making, something like $50,000 a hit. In this one he's getting older and has come up with a retirement plan. He will make one million dollars, than hang it up. This, plus Dot's investments in the stock market should allow him enough for a comfortable retirement, plus being able to indulge his stamp hobby.

During one of his conversations with Dot, they discuss whether he may be a sociopath. "How else could you kill someone?" she argues. But there's evidence that Keller cares about others. For one thing, he helps feed the volunteers who are working on clean-up of the Trade Center disaster. Another instance occurs when he's assigned the murder of a baseball player. The baseball player is only a few hits shy of 3,000 hits and 400 homers, which would get him into the Hall of Fame. Keller can't do it until the man achieves these goals. He also has trouble going through with a contract when he knows the target personally, as happens when he's hired to "cancel" a fellow stamp collector.

There's also some dark humor in HIT PARADE, as there always is with Block. For instance, one of his commissions involves the murder of a pit bull. But then the two women who want the pit bull killed turn on each other and complications ensue.

I've been a fan of Lawrence Block's ever since I first picked up a Matt Scudder mystery; KELLER'S GREATEST HITS is a recent discovery. There are only three. However, I have one tiny objection to these series mysteries: We always know beforehand the main character is never really in any trouble. Without Keller, there is no series. Lawrence Block is just sinister enough to bump Keller off one of these times or at least get him arrested, and I'm kind of looking forward to it.

...and still the champion
Keller the killer is back, as good as ever--still champion. It's amazing that I actually looked forward to a sympathetic account of a murderer for hire and philatelist, lest I forget. Keller is simply one of the best-ever characters in crime fiction. The book is episodic, as are the two previous volumes in this series. Keller does in a baseball player and others, including a dog, of the canine rather than human variety. But the plot or plots scarcely matter.

Lawrence Block's biggest talent is in the writing of dialogue. Other writers should study the flow of it, the subtle undertones. Most crime fiction writers are lame by comparison. And, of course, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the humor that prevails through the carnage Keller leaves behind in his travels. I actually laughed out loud, several times, as I read this, and I now have to wait a year or so as I look forward to the next book. Meanwhile, I'm sure Keller will be filling in more blank spaces in his stamp albums.