I'm completely embarrassed to say that I've read this one before, somehow, in some form. One would think I'd remember a book called Hit Man. Alas, I'm getting old. So what did I do when I discovered my little error? Keep on reading, of course, because I could only vaguely remember details and it is a fast read. What I have to say about memory is that it's very odd to read one long deja vu, and somewhat disconcerting to realize my memory had inserted another chapter. Perhaps I was channelling Blo...

How does Lawrence Block do it? He's the author of the comic Evan Tanner series about an ultra-insomniac CIA agent. He's written the dark and suspenseful Matthew Scudder series. Then he's got the uproariously funny and New York-hip series about Bernie Rhodenbarr, the world's suavest burglar. You'd never think that these three series were penned by the same author.Now Block does it again with the incredibly inventive Hit Man, a debut novel about a philosophical murderer for hire. You'd expect such...

This is my first Block novel, and I didn’t find the best place to start. The best I can describe it is patchy. It gets interesting and then runs out of steam. It’s sometimes humorous, but without consistency. There’s not one traditional through line, and where I was expecting a mystery it wasn’t one. Still, I expect to try another one, but maybe not in this series.

A composite novel about a hitman who spends a lot of his time wondering just what it is he is doing with his life, I had expected it to be closer to Block's Scudder novels than the Burglar Bernie books in terms of tone and content, but Block plays it light and observational and somehow makes it work. He doesn't revel in the sordid details of the act like your common Lee Child might, instead he finds value in his character and the humanity he observes, using the collection of stories to explore h...

Keller's a pretty normal guy. He does crosswords, loves dogs, collects stamps and buys earrings for his girlfriend every time he travels. And he travels a lot since his job is killing people.Block did a great job with this string of short stories about Keller that build a character study about a professional hit man who often finds himself dealing with odd circumstances despite his desire to just do the job and get out of town. Keller isn't a psycho, but he isn't exactly wracked with guilt eithe...

Before I forget to mention, this is a 10-chapter book about an irregular assasin. Each chapter serves as a self-contained story, but all these stories are connected and show progression. So it functions as a novel in episodic doses. I must say, the format really worked for me. But enough about that.Sometimes you dive into a story with no expectations and come out of it grinning ear to ear. I make it sound like a sweet little romcom. It's not. It's irreverent and cynical and so, so entertaining.

Aside from Matthew Scudder, J. P. Keller has always been my favorite of the characters created by Lawrence Block. Keller is just your basic guy, living alone in New York City and doing the sorts of things that a lonely, single guy would do. But every once in a while, his phone rings and it's Dot on the line, summoning him to White Plains to meet with the Old Man. After reporting in and receiving his instructions, Keller then goes off somewhere and kills somebody.As the book's title would imply,

Until now, I have never read any Lawrence Block. Is that a cardinal sin for an avid reader? It should be.My penance will just have to be more Block...

A collection of short stories featuring John Keller, a professional hit-man whose job takes him to different places where he eliminates the target and then return home after that. He is not a typical hit man (the ones you see in spy movies) nor a psycho-path, He's close to a normal person. Keller takes his time in doing his job, waiting for the right moment to strike. He passes time by solving crosswords puzzles, fantasizing about the places he went to (settling down there, having a normal life)...

LAWRENCE BLOCK - HIT MAN (1998)Synopsis/blurb….Keller is an assassin – he is paid by the job and works for a mysterious man who nominates hits and passes on commissions from elsewhere. Keller goes in, does the job, gets out: usually at a few hours’ notice . . . Often Keller’s work takes him out of New York to other cities, to pretty provincial towns that almost tempt him into moving to the woods and the lakeshores. Almost but not quite.Then one job goes wrong in a way Keller has never imagined a...

This was a cool introduction to a new (to me) series by Lawrence Block. It's about, as the title suggests, a hit man named Keller.Each chapter is an assignment for Keller, so it's like a series within a single book. This style kept it from ever becoming a bulky read.Or listen, in this case. I found the audiobook and was pleased to try it out with this method. The actor Robert Forster did the narration and I'd have to say was pretty much perfect for this book. He really fit the style of the writi...

Hitman is a collection of short stories about a professional killer named Keller. What sets this book apart from others of its kind is that it's more about what Keller does when he's not actively killing people, what makes him tick. He has fantasies about living in whatever town he's visiting for a job. He has a dog that he's quite attached to. And eventually he takes up stamp collecting as a hobby so he'll have something to do when he retires.That's not to say there's no action. Keller dispatch...

I purchased a hardback copy soon after publication at Barnes and Noble. I remember really liking it even if a little sterile.

Delightful. I thoroughly enjoy Block's sense of humor and the irreverence that he imbues into the protagonist, Keller, a professional hit man who is both likeable and existentially curious at the same time. Adding this to his thief series makes Block a frequent visitor to my "to read" shelf. Hooray.

Keller is your standard lonely bachelor. He makes a decent wage, but every night comes home to his apartment alone. He spends his time with his hobbies, watching TV, reading the occasional book… he’s starting to get into stamp collecting. He likes dogs, and every once in a while he has to go out of town and kill someone; but that’s just a job, and a profession doesn’t have to define a person, now does it? Nope. Keller’s your average, occasionally boring guy.Block’s first collection of short stor...

Ten loosely connected short stories about a hit man - Keller, going around the country completing contracts. The stories are formulaic - Keller gets a mission, runs into a complication and ultimately overcomes it. For a book about assassinations, the hit themselves are devoid of shocks or set pieces. Keller follows the target around, waits for the opportune moment and then moves in for a close combat kill. There is one exception where he poisons the target and that is the most elaborate hit of t...

I'll say up front, I fully expected that if I got into this book I'd at best be mildly interested. It is after all a story of a "Hit Man". Personally I don't condone murder either as profession or pass time, so in rating this book a 4 I'm saying this is an interesting book.It's odd to find yourself at least mildly sympathetic to a killer. When I first "met" Keller he put me in mind of a homicidal Walter Mitty. When he goes somewhere to "fulfill" a contract he tends to start day dreaming about ha...

Lawrence Block is a hard working pulp crime novelist, best known for his hard-boiled detective Matthew Scudder, gentleman thief Bernie Rhodenbarr and hit man John Keller. Hit Man is the first book in the Keller series, combining a collection of short stories to develop this character. This is an interesting technique and Block’s short story book One Night Stands and Lost Weekends remains one of my favourite crime collections. He manages to pack the same punch of a normal pulp novel into a stripp...

Given that Crime/Thriller is pretty much my favourite genre, I am surprised that I have read only one other novel by the prolific Lawrence Block, "Burglars Can't Be Choosers". I did enjoy that book and I equally enjoyed "Hit Man" and its protagonist, murderer-for-hire, Keller. Well written in an easily read but quite captivating style, "Hit Man" engenders something close to empathy for Keller, if not for his means of earning a living and while not really liking the character, I did feel that he

Finally getting round to reading the Keller series after having read all the Matt Scudder books last year. Had forgotten how much I enjoyed reading Lawrence Block and am really glad that I have a new series to read as was suffering Scudder withdrawal symptoms (that sounds like quite a horrible disease). It's not quite as good as the Scudder books but still a really fun read with plenty of unexpected twists. This one is written as a series of short stories but each follows on from and refers to p...