Hit Parade (Keller Series, 3)

The hero of of our story is a hit man named Keller. He has a hobby of collecting stamps. Hi broker for his paid assassinations is someone named Dot. Dot will get a job an then call Keller. He will then carry out the job. In this book you had a variety of characters. His first assignment is a professional baseball player named Floyd Turnbull. Turnbull is about to reach a career record of 400 homeruns and 3,000 hits. Keller has to make the decision whether he should allow him to reach these goals. His next assignment is to assassinate a jockey if a racehorse named Kissimee Dudley doesn't win a race. He next moves to Miami to hunt down and kill Ruben Olivares. Keller next travels to Arizona to carry out his next job. It is on a labor official named William Wallis Edgemont. Keller starts worrying about retirement. He along with Dot decide to take any job so he can accumulate $1,000,000. His stamp collection has lowered his savings.He is next hired by Claude Harrelson to kill his business partner Barry Blyden. This assignment becomes quite complicated. Keller is next hired to kill Fluffy a pit bull. This job has more to it than killing a pit bull.His next hit is on Meredith Grondahl who is under the Witness Protection Program in Indianapolis.An underworld figure Len Horvath hires Keller to kill Sheridan Bingham. This was an interesting book but Keller still hadn't decided to retire.

Professional killer John Keller isn't a sociopath. He's pretty sure of this because he does have some feelings. And he never had experience torturing animals, wetting his bed, or setting fires. But he's good at killing, and he's not getting any younger. Starting a new career at his age, and with his lack of things to put in his resume (you really can't list dozens of professional hits) just doesn't appeal. Still, it would be nice to have someone to talk to, to explain his problems to. Still, Keller's problems with a former (and late) psychologist don't bode well for that kind of honesty. Although Keller may angst about his career, he has a stamp collection that demands new feedings and the offers just keep coming in. So, he goes about his job. A ball-club realizes that it made a mistake paying an aging free agent millions of dollars and opts for the permanent retirement plan. A businessman wants to disolve a business partnership but lacks the funds to buy his partner out. 9-11 happens and Keller takes some time out to volunteer at the soup kitchens, but the demand for murder doesn't stop. Still, what happens when Keller actually likes a client? And what happens when an apparently simple case of a dog-killing dog takes un unexpected complications. Keller has to keep in mind his need to feed the stamp collection and find a way to struggle on, killing because that's his job. Author Lawrence Block somehow manages to make a cold-blooded professional killer sympathetic and interesting--and even darkly funny. Keller works with his victims, finding ways to arrange their murders so they'll be seen as natural causes or unexpected muggings. He waits, sometimes for weeks, for the moment when the killing seems appropriate rather than simply a meaningless death. He cleans up after himself, even if that means occasionally killing where he doesn't even get paid for it. When he decides he has had enough, the only way he can see to get out is to kill even more people, even faster. HIT PARADE is not a comfortable book. Keller may have his moments of existentialist angst, but he is not concerned with the morality of his killings. In some cases, the victims deserve what they get, in other cases, not-so-much. Still, Block manages to involve the reader, make us wonder how Keller is going to manage the next death, how he's going to deal with his own issues, whether he really is going to pull off his planned retirement. One thing for sure--I'm definitely de-motivated to go into the murder for hire business.

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.

Contract killer John Keller has been at it for a long time, methodically rubbing out his victims while attempting to fill in the holes in his vintage stamp collection. Keller is thinking about retirement but he has been spending so much money on postage stamps that he needs to work even harder. He stalks a baseball player all around the country, waiting for him to attain some statistical milestones before fulfilling the contract. He enjoys the ballgames and picks up some Turkish postage stamps along the way. He checks in with Dot to update her on the progress of his work, she is his contact with various death brokers and Block keeps his dark subject very light and breezy. The real joy of this audiobook is that Larry Block is the reader. The book is great, his reading is dead on and a sweet thing to hear. The combination of zingy writing read by a real master makes this audiobook a real treat!

Keller is a strangely loveable hit-man. The man is not a sociopath, but he still kills people for a living. At least all his victims are not likeable. I find the interaction between Keller and Dot to be the most entertaining aspect of the book. Block has written a unique series of books. If you have not read the entire series it is not necessary to read the first two books in the trilogy(Hit Man and Hit List) but reading the first two helps you understand Keller. Reading the first two books will also give you a better appreciation and understanding of the relationship between Keller, the hit man, and Dot, his "broker". Enjoy.