Hit List
Written by Lawrence Block
Narrated by Lawrence Block
4/5
()
About this audiobook
Keller is a regular guy, a solid citizen. He goes to the movies, watches the tube, browses the art galleries, and works diligently on his stamp collection. But every now and then a call from the breezily efficient Dot sends him off to kill a total stranger. He takes a plane, rents a car, finds a hotel room, and gets back before the body is cold.
He's a real pro, cool and dispassionate and very good at what he does. Until one day when Dot breaks her own rule and books him for a hit in New York, his home base. She sends him to an art gallery opening, and the girl he gets lucky with steers him to an astrologer. He's a Gemini, his moon's in Taurus...and he's got a murderer's thumb.
Then the jobs start to go wrong. Targets die before he can draw a bead on them. The realization is slow in coming, but there's no getting around it: Somebody out there is trying to hit the hit man. Keller, God help him, has found his way on to somebody else's hit list.
Read by the author.Lawrence Block
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.
More audiobooks from Lawrence Block
Hope to Die Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5In Sunlight Or In Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsCatch and Release Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Not Comin' Home to You Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hollywood vs. The Author Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Related to Hit List
Titles in the series (3)
Hit List Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hit Parade Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hit and Run Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related audiobooks
Hit and Run Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hit List Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Con Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Burglar on the Prowl Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Retro: An Amos Walker Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Burglar Who Thought He Was Bogart Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Empty Hours Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Eight Black Horses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Feral Detective: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Damned in Paradise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hit Parade Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everybody Dies Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Even the Wicked Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Walk Among the Tombstones Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Hit Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Small Town Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5'Til Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Drop of the Hard Stuff Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Killer's Wedge Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Time to Scatter Stones: A Matthew Scudder Novella Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Pusher Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Nightlife Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bomber's Law Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ghosts Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Burglar in Short Order Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Split Images Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Mugger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Burglar Who Met Frederic Brown Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Killer is Dying Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
General Fiction For You
A Court of Mist and Fury Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good Omens: A Full Cast Production Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Thorns and Roses Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Frost and Starlight Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5If He Had Been with Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Three-Body Problem Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Court of Wings and Ruin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Return of the King Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Neverwhere Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Two Towers Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finn Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stardust Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5American Gods: The Tenth Anniversary Edition Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fight Club Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Bell Jar Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And Then There Were None Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Name of the Wind Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Darker Shade of Magic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Overstory Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paris Apartment: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dead Zone Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Dutch House: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Me: A Memoir Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Their Eyes Were Watching God Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Reviews for Hit List
177 ratings5 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The astrologer subplot is a bit wonky and there's too many coincidences making everything unreal and I thought the strength of the character was that he was boring and the murders were realistic. OK, not realistic in a sense that it could happen but mundane.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Short stories kill my taste for detective series far quicker than reading, say, the whole Nero Wolfe corpus ever did. I still love Lawrence Block's stamp-collecting hitman Keller, but grew tired of the 'formula' pretty quick with this second instalment. The long 'quirky' conversations with his agent Dot, where one or both go off on a tangent, soon lost their charm in particular. Still, good fun and easy to read while travelling to and from work.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5I just read Lawrence Block's "Hit Man" collection of short stories two weeks ago and really enjoyed it. I expected this story (second in the series) to be equally entertaining but it fell far short. I have to believe that this novel was constructed/expanded out of a couple short stories because each chapter is repeating elements of the prior chapter(s) like maybe we had forgotten them in a few pages. There is just too much recapping and padding in here to qualify as a good read. The interesting story elements (such as one involving a painter) were overshadowed by long weak sections. The story starts off very slow on top of it all but a twist to this wherein the hunter might be the hunted adds a little interest. It just seems like a poorly written sloppy fix-up novel. I'll give the next book a try sometime as I like the character "Keller" in here and the first book of stories was quite entertaining.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I enjoyed these short stories immensely. Although, I guess they are more episodic than entirely separate.
Block's anti-hero is a rather boring blend into the crowd hit man. He is very normal, except he kills people. And he is likable, and yet - he kills people for hire and does it with about as much emotional angst as someone might have over firing an employee. He's not a sociopath, he's a business man.
Block does an excellent job of making Keller both entirely normal and likeable with homey descriptions of his life between jobs, his daily activities, his hobbies and girlfriends. It's all almost boring and yet very compelling. (which is the mark of a good writer, in my opinion) And then he startles us out of our complacence with Keller killing people. More or less innocent people are killed.
The strongest supporting character is Dot, the assistant to the old man, who gives Keller his jobs. She is tough and yet a bit motherly with lots of snark in her commentary, to which Keller plays the straight man.
It is not particularly realistic. I found myself aware that Keller had a very casual attitude about evidence, but the characters hold it together and so I never quite lost my suspension of disbelief. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It is what you'd expect if you read Hit Man: it's fast and easy to read, the characters are engaging and interesting and the morals are not stogged down your throat.The only negatives are that the segue between "scenes" is a bit choppier than in Hit Man (or Hit and Run which were both excellent reads) and there is a bit too much coverage of Keller's stamp collecting hobby. Oh, and there is some "supernatural" stuff near the 2/3 mark that didn't really seem to fit Keller's character.