The Hitman Diaries

Dark and delightful. If think you might enjoy a sort of English Carl Hiaasen this book is for you.

Written by a former burglar who renounced his life of crime, got an education, and started a new career as a journalist, Danny King's The Hitman Diaries is a dark novel of the personal life of a professional killer. Most of the women Ian Bridges meets in his line of work end up dead -- until he is thrust in a moral quandary when his next contract happens to be for the one woman who truly loves and understands him. Black humor laced with tangled human realities make for an engaging, offbeat, original, skillfully crafted novel would make one dynamite Hollywood movie!

To tell the truth, I borrowed this book from my library because of its cute pink cover - it struck me as weird that a book titled as such would use this colour theme usually meant for those diabetic-inducing novels or whatever is associated with 'cute' book genres! But I never regretted borrowing the book; I fully intend to get it from my bookstore as soon as I can.Danny King's humour shines through in this book, clearly meant only for those who are able to look at the world in a crooked and morbid view. I feel that it's kinda like in the same vein as 'Kill Bill' (another fantastic movie!) but without all the blood and gore (unless you really go and visualise it all in your mind). But as you read the book further, you start to sympathise with the lead character, Ian Bridges, who only wants to find his leukemia/coma girl while doing his hit jobs for the mob boss JB - which is kinda similar to everyone of us searching for that one great love, ain't it? Plenty of hilarious and albeit unrealistic (at least to me) and totally fantastic situations but hey it's supposed to be fiction. But Danny King made each character lovable in their own individual way and you start to cheer on Ian's side in his quest for love! If you can't find the ridiculousness in any kind of situation, this is definitely not the book for you. This book has made me a Danny King fan and now, excuse me while I go get the other two books in the series...