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"Hit Parade"

(reviewed by Hagen Baye SEP 30, 2006)

John “The Hit Man” Keller is the latest of the series characters created by Lawrence Block.  In response to a question about whether he ever considered writing a story involving a couple of his series characters, Block replied that it was not possible, “because they each occupy different universes.”  So true, and the creation of such unique and distinctively diverse characters is but one of the hallmarks of Block’s brilliance that distinguishes him from many of his peers. There is, indeed, very little in common among ex-cop, ex-alcoholic Matt Scudder, happy-go-lucky burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, hot-to-trot apprentice PI Chip Harrison, eccentric master of espionage Evan Tanner and assassin-for-hire John Keller.   Keller is a highly complex character, whereas Bernie, Chip and Evan are too comic to be taken totally seriously.  Scudder, the primordial existential man, who stripped himself of home, family and career, and then pulled himself out of the gutter of alcoholism and rebuilt himself into a fully functioning person, is an extremely complex character.   However, there is a strong element of reality about Scudder that readers can relate to, whereas readers need to suspend reality with respect to Keller, as few are able to relate to the ways of a professional hit man.

Hit Parade is Block’s third collection of Keller stories.  Like the two previous collections, Hit Man and Hit List, it is not a novel per se, as there is no central plot, just a series of stories, each pertaining to a separate “assignment.”  The stories do flow chronologically, are unified by Keller’s contacts with his employer, and the experience of the earlier hits inform those that come later.  And then there are the conflicts that are troubling Keller throughout Hit Parade.

Block’s creation is not exactly a red-blooded murderer.  For Keller, being a hit man is a profession that he literally fell into.  He only kills those he is contracted to hit.  Sometimes it becomes necessary to kill others as ancillary to a contracted hit, like when Keller had to kill a person who happened to walk in on a hit.   In reaction to this murder, Keller got sick to his stomach and vomited.

Keller needs certain “exercises” to assist him to block out memories of his victims, most of whom he only knows as impersonal targets, not as human beings.  Apparently, he has to expend greater efforts to make those exercises work, for he keeps harping on them throughout Hit Parade. On the one hand, he is averse to being characterized as a sociopath, but he also realizes how much easier it would be to sleep and block out his victims if he were.  And then, Keller gets to know some of his Hit Parade victims personally and this only creates further conflict for him.

In Hit Parade, Keller thinks seriously about getting out of the business.  In addition to the other issues plaguing him, post-911 tightened security has complicated his modus operandi.   Air travel has become more problematic what with the heightened security and the need to travel with legitimate IDs.  Keller even drives cross-country for a hit in order to avoid having to go through airport security.   However, being a contract killer is the only profession he knows, and at this juncture of his life it would be impossible for Keller to amass sufficient funds to retire doing anything else.  Then, and to further complicate things, there is his beloved stamp collecting, which had already whittled away his original retirement fund.  For him to continue to collect stamps, he needs what he earns from killing.  Besides, stamp collection has the additional advantage of providing him with the “total absorption” that assists him to block out memories of his hits.

These conflicts do not paralyze Keller from completing his assignments during Hit Parade.  He manages to rack up a body count of some 16 persons and one dog (of all things).  Keller is his resourceful self, cleverly able to manipulate situations to set up his victim.  More often than not, the hits appear to be accidental.  And, even if not, Keller always manages to get away scot-free.  

Those who get to “march” in Hit Parade include a veteran baseball player, a retiree, a fellow stamp collector, the dog and a businessman. In some instances, Keller’s clients make fatal mistakes and became hits themselves.  Like one client who tries to short-change Keller and the co-clients who each also hired him separately to kill the other after paying him to target a third party.  Each of these unfortunate folks failed to realize that their target hated them at least as much and would also pay to put them away if the opportunity presented itself. Such mistakes leads to Keller reaping some sweet financial killings. And all in all, Keller makes out well financially with the Hit Parade hits, and he is even able to supplement his hit-man earnings at the racetrack (where he hedged his bet to come out ahead even if his horse lost) and on the stock market (by reversing a failed double-cross to his advantage).

Block is his usual masterful self in Hit Parade, conceiving and crafting extremely clever and brilliantly written stories.  He manages to make Keller a sympathetic character, despite his sociopathic qualities, even making him likeable albeit the despicably callous ways in which he conducts his business of killing (mostly) unknown people for unknown clients for unknown reasons.  It is yet another great read by one of the finest authors writing today.

• Amazon readers rating: from 11 reviews

Read a chapter excerpt from Hit Parade at Harper Collins

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Bibliography: (with links to Amazon.com)

• Coward's Kiss (1961)
• You Could Call It Murder (Originally published as Markham) (1961)
• Deadly Honeymoon (1967)
• After the First Death (1969)
• Specialists (1969)
• Ronald Rabbit is A Dirty Old Man (1971)
• Ariel (1980)
• Code of Arms (1981)
• Random Walk (1988)
• Some Days You Get the Bear: Stories (1993)
• Ehrengraf for the Defense: Stories (1994)
• One-Night Stands: Early Stories (1999)
• Collected Mystery Stories (1999)
• The Lost Cases of Ed London (2001)
• Enough Rope: Collected Stories (2002)
• Small Town (January 2003)
• Cinderella Sims (March 2003)
• Manhattan Noir (April 2006)

Hard Case Crimes reprints:

• Mona (1961) (republished as Grifter's Game in September 2004)
• The Girl with the Long Green Heart (1965; reprinted November 2005)
• Lucky at Cards (originally published 1964 under a pseudonym; January 2007)
• A Diet of Treacle (originally published 196? under a pseudonym; January 2008)
• Killing Castro (originally published 196? under a pseudonym; January 2009)

Matthew Scudder Mysteries

• The Sins of the Fathers (1976)
• Time to Murder and Create (1976)
• In the Midst of Death (1976)
• A Stab in the Dark (1981)
• Eight Million Ways to Die (1982)
• When the Sacred Ginmill Closes (1986)
• Out on the Cutting Edge (1989)
• A Ticket to the Boneyard (1990)
• A Dance At the Slaughterhouse (1991)
• A Walk Among the Tombstones (1992)
• The Devil Knows You're Dead (1993)
• A Long Line of Dead Men (1994)
• Even the Wicked (1997)
• Everybody Dies (1998)
• Hope To Die (2001)
• All The Flowers are Dying (February 2005)

Keller Series:

• Hit Man (1999)
• Hit List (2000)
• Hit Parade (2006)
• Hit and Run (June 2008)

Bernie Rhodenbarr Mysteries

• Burglars Can't Be Choosers (1977)
• The Burglar in the Closet (1978)
• The Burglar Who Like to Quote Kipling (1979)
• The Burglar Who Studied Spinoza (1980)
• The Burglar Who Painted Like Mondrian (1983)
• The Burglar Who Traded Ted Williams (1994)
• The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart (1995)
• The Burglar in the Library (1997)
• The Burglar in the Rye (1999)
• The Burglar on the Prowl (March 2004)

Evan Tanner Mysteries

• The Thief Who Couldn't Sleep (1966)
• The Cancelled Czech (1966)
• Tanner's Twelve Swingers (1967)
• Two for Tanner (1967)
• Here Comes A Hero (1968)
• Tanner's Tiger (1968)
• Me Tanner, You Jane (1970)
• Tanner on Ice (1998)

Writing as Paul Kavanagh

• Such Men are Dangerous (1969)
• The Triumph of Evil (1971)
• Not Comin' Home to You (1974)

Nonfiction:

• Writing the Novel from Plot to Plot (1979)
• Telling Lies for Fun & Profit (1981)
• Write for Your Life (1986)
• Spider, Spin Me a Web (1987)

Movies from Books:

• Nightmare Honeymoon (based on Deadly Honeymoon)
• Eight Million Ways to Die (1985)
• Burglar (loosely based on The Burglar in the Closet) (1987)
• Keller (based on Hit Man)
• A Walk Among the Tombstones

 

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Book Marks:

• The Official Web site for Lawrence Block
• Writer's Write interview with Lawrence Block
• Ex Libris reviews of books by Lawrence Block
• PostGazette.com review of Tanner on Ice
• Over My Dead Body review of Hit Man
• The Mystery Reader review of Hit List

MostlyFiction.com reviews of other books by Lawrence Block:

• MostlyFiction.com review of Standalone Mysteries
• MostlyFiction.com review of Bernie Rhodenbarr, Bookseller/Burglar
• MostlyFiction.com review of Matthew Scudder novels

 

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About the Author:

Lawrence Block was born in Buffalo, New York in 1938. He attended Antioch College in Ohio then went to work in the mailroom of a New York publisher. His first story was published in 1957 and since has written more than thirty novels and countless stories and articles, not just under his own name but also as Paul Kavanagh. Indeed Lawrence Block has had several pseudonyms having learned his writer's art crafting erotic literature as Andrew Shaw, Sheldon Lord and Jill Emerson.

His novels range from the urban noir of Matthew Scudder to the urbane effervescence of Bernie Rhodenbarr, while other characters include the globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner and the introspective assassin Keller (Hit List). He has published articles and short fiction in American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, GQ, and The New York Times, and has published several collections of short fiction in book form, the most recent being his Collected Mystery Stories. Larry is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe award. In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. Most recently he was awarded the Crime Writers Association Cartier Diamond Dagger 2004 award, rarely awarded to American writers. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Australia, Italy, New Zealand and Spain, and, as if that were not enough, was presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. He is a past president of the Private Eye Writers of America and the Mystery Writers of America.