Hit and Run
Keller just can’t catch a break. In Des Moines to pull off a job, our favorite hitman is at a stamp dealer indulging in his favorite hobby when news breaks that a popular black politician — and presidential hopeful — has been assassinated. The bad news hits Keller even harder when he figures out he’s been set up as the trigger man.
That’s the dilemma that faces the hired gun in Lawrence Block’s HIT AND RUN, a kinder, gentler Keller novel. After arriving in town, he was supposed to hang out in a motel and await the call to eliminate his target. But that was some “jerkoff” in Bermuda shorts, not the guy who might become the country’s commander in chief. Aye-yi-yi.
So now Keller has to figure out how to get back home without drawing attention to himself, without getting noticed and without running out of money (at least without having to unload the precious rare stamps he just bought). Through short chapters with long stretches shorn of dialogue, we follow Keller making his moves. The way Block describes his methods, it reads almost like a procedural.
Just when you think you won’t be able to take an entire novel of this, something happens that rocks Keller’s entire world, forcing the story to take an abrupt left turn into oncoming traffic. In this new direction, Keller saves a hot-to-trot single woman from a park rape, and she thanks him by letting him stay at the home she shares with her ailing father, who advises Keller to sleep with his daughter if he ever gets the chance. (Oh, he gets it, all right.)
And just when you think you won’t be able to take any more of a domesticated Keller having to take construction gigs to earn his keep, something else happens that rocks Keller’s entire world again, reintroducing the element of danger and an opportunity for revenge.
Whether in full-length or short-story form, Keller is a terrific antihero; although he murders for money, you can’t help but like him. After all, spending all his money on stamps instead of smack means the guy has to have a heart and principles, right? HIT AND RUN is full of the author’s lean speech, stressful situations and just a pinch of offbeat quirkiness. Block’s gift at keeping the reader on his toes remains, even if it requires a couple of lulls to do so. —Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE BURGLAR IN THE LIBRARY by Lawrence Block
• THE BURGLAR IN THE RYE by Lawrence Block
• THE BURGLAR WHO THOUGHT HE WAS BOGART by Lawrence Block
• A DANCE AT THE SLAUGHTERHOUSE by Lawrence Block
• A DIET OF TREACLE by Lawrence Block
• THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART by Lawrence Block
• GRIFTER’S GAME by Lawrence Block
• HIT PARADE by Lawrence Block
• LUCKY AT CARDS by Lawrence Block
• ME TANNER, YOU JANE by Lawrence Block
• THE SCORELESS THAI by Lawrence Block
• TANNER ON ICE by Lawrence Block
• TANNER’S TIGER by Lawrence Block
• TANNER’S TWELVE SWINGERS by Lawrence Block
• TANNER’S VIRGIN by Lawrence Block
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