It’s not sold as such, but Lawrence Block’s HIT PARADE is not a novel, but a threaded-together collection of short stories, all featuring the esteemed crime author’s venerable homicide-for-hire hitman/stamp collector named John Keller.
Four of the nine stories I had read before – “Keller’s Designated Hitter,” “Keller by a Nose,” “Keller’s Double Dribble” and “Keller’s Adjustment” – in the anthologies THESE GUNS FOR HIRE, MURDER AT THE RACE TRACK, MURDER AT THE FOUL LINE and Ed McBain’s TRANSGRESSIONS, leaving five new to my eyes. This is not a complaint, because even just one new Keller story would be worth the purchase price. Yes, he’s that much fun.
Exactly how one can turn a hired gun into the good guy is beyond me, but Block has long pulled it off, and HIT PARADE is the third such collection of Keller’s various freelance jobs. In “Proactive Keller,” he’s reluctantly drafted by a guy to off his business partner, but the man is strangely wishy-washy about coming up with all the money beforehand. The more humorous “Keller the Dogkiller” finds him facing a different kind of target: an annoying canine whose owner allows it to attack and kill other people’s pets. Once Keller gets comfortable with the idea of offing a dog, the job turns into something else entirely.
“Quotidian Keller” marks a change of pace for the book, as Keller actually starts to feel sorry for his intended victim: a fellow philatelist. Doubt seeps in, which spills over into “Keller’s Legacy,” most of which is spent with Keller instructing his booking agent Dot about what to do with his stamp collection if he were to die or disappear. Since he has no family and he’s facing old age, he starts to worry about what would become of his “kids.”
Lastly, “Keller and the Rabbits” is a brief three-pager that reassures you the death in Keller’s near future won’t be his own. And that’s exactly how it should be, given Keller is a favorite series character of many. My first exposure to Block was through one of these clever, snappy Keller adventures, and they never disappoint.
The only bad thing is the rather soft-boiled cover, bullet holes or not. Perhaps in the next Keller collection, Block can send him to do away with whoever thought a lipstick-red background and streams of confetti were a good idea. –Rod Lott
OTHER BOOKGASM REVIEWS OF THIS AUTHOR:
• THE BURGLAR IN THE LIBRARY by Lawrence Block
• THE BURGLAR WHO THOUGHT HE WAS BOGART by Lawrence Block
• THE GIRL WITH THE LONG GREEN HEART by Lawrence Block
• LUCKY AT CARDS by Lawrence Block
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