Holiday Fare

Dakotaraptor illustration by Emily Willoughby

One of the joys of bringing up my son was getting turned on to dinosaurs when he was obsessed with them in elementary school. I'm thrilled when a new dinosaur is discovered, such as the huge raptor whose 66-million-year-old remains were found recently in South Dakota. Dakotaraptor steini was 16 feet long, winged and feathered, but couldn't fly. This inability probably wasn't much consolation to its prey, however, because it could run and leap like the dickens, and its front and rear limbs sported what paleontologist Robert DePalma calls "essentially grappling hooks" for slicing and dicing flesh. Whoa. Think about how challenging appendages like that would make shaking hands, changing the sheets, blowing your nose, and using a keyboard. I admit they would come in handy for making fruit salad and slicing bread into cubes for Thanksgiving stuffing.

Thanksgiving is November 26th. While you're preparing for the holiday, don't forget something to read. Over the next few days, I'll tell you about some books you might want to consider. If you're traveling, you'll need a book for the trip; if you're staying put and playing host, you'll need one for that moment when––after spending hours scrubbing and tidying––you come to your senses and remember your guests want to share the festivities rather than conduct a germaphobic's field test of your premises. Don't think about your cleanliness-obsessed mom or your anal-retentive Uncle Mortimer, and ditch the dust cloth, pour yourself a glass of wine, and curl up with a book. Then, at the end of the Big Day, whether you've played host or guest, you'll also need a book to occupy your mind before you fall asleep. After all, you don't want to just lie there wondering if you'll be able to get your jeans zipped up in the morning, do you?

We'll begin with an ingenious cat-and-mouse game––among a bunch of hit men hunting their targets and each other. The hero of Chris Holm's riveting The Killing Kind (Mulholland Books, September 2015) is Michael Hendricks, who adores his girlfriend and couldn't stand to see an animal suffer. This sweetie pie joined the US Army and became a super-duper special ops soldier. When his unit was destroyed in Afghanistan, Hendricks was assumed dead. He sneaked back to the United States, but he felt too contaminated by violence to even let his grieving girlfriend know he's still alive. Now Hendricks lives off the grid and tries "to make things right, one murder at a time."

This means Hendricks calls a crime syndicate's targets for assassination––if he deems them morally worth saving––and offers to protect them for 10 times what their assigned hit man would make. Of course, Hendricks doesn't know what the pro killer looks like or exactly when the murder is scheduled to happen, so Hendricks usually must wait until the hit is attempted to take out the hitter. Eventually the syndicate bosses discover what's going on, and Hendricks himself becomes prey.

Holm's intelligent writing is perfect for this plot. It makes for an action thriller that's neither boringly shallow nor mind-numbingly convoluted. The Killing Kind has its gory moments, but it's not a senseless blood bath. The point of view skips around among various well-drawn and entertaining characters, allowing us to get to know each one and adding to the suspense. I cared whether Hendricks lived or died, right up to the cinematic ending. Please, somebody, make this into a movie.

Why Did the Human Cross the Road?

Recent reading has me contemplating human nature and destiny. Before we get to the actual books that inspired this thinking, we could warm up our minds by looking at Shakespeare for Cassius's ideas about being our own masters versus the fault in our stars or King Henry IV's desire to peek at the book of fate; however, it's Monday, and our heads are already spinning without the stimulus of the Bard. Let's ask instead why the chicken crossed the road. And no, we can't say it's simply to get to the other side.

I love the answers Harvard's David Morin attributes to physicists such as Einstein ("The chicken did not cross the road. The road passed beneath the chicken.") and Schrodinger ("The chicken doesn’t cross the road. Rather, it exists simultaneously on both sides . . . just don’t peek."), but those answers are observational. They don't really examine the nature of the chicken and the road or the roles played by the chicken's motivations and choices, as well as fate, in its crossing.

Sorry, Dr. Martin Luther King, but we're grilling these birds.

For those answers, we'll turn to philosophers. We'll skip Kierkegaard, who would no doubt attribute the chicken's crossing to a leap of faith, and Freud, who would likely blame your mother or your own underlying sexual insecurity for whatever interpretation of the chicken's behavior. I imagine Kant declaring, "The chicken, being an autonomous being, chose to cross the road of his own free will"; but Orwell disagreeing: "Because the government had fooled him into thinking that he was crossing the road of his own free will, when he was really only serving their interests." Ludwig Wittgenstein's ideas point to a different inspiration: "The possibility of 'crossing' was encoded into the objects 'chicken'' and 'road,' and circumstances came into being which caused the actualization of this potential occurrence." Sartre, on the other hand, would observe that in order to act in good faith and be true to itself, the chicken found it necessary to cross the road.

Let's interpolate from the philosophers' ideas about a chicken's behavior in crossing the road to the behavior of the characters in books I've recently read.

If David Bowie can look like a Polish chicken,
Sal Cupertine can pass for Rabbi David Cohen.

In Tod Goldberg's Gangsterland (Counterpoint, September 9, 2014), we follow two characters who eventually meet up: One of them is Chicagoan Sal Cupertine, age 35, the younger cousin of a Mob-connected used-car king, Ronnie Cupertine. Sal is the doting father of little William and loving husband to Jennifer, who turns a blind eye to Sal's job as the Chicago Mob's best pro killer. The other character is Jeff Hopper, whose childhood dream was to wear a beautiful suit that concealed a gun, to catch bad guys, and to save America. When Jeff got older, he became more cynical, but he's still one of those guys you'd like to see coach your kid's Little League team. He is working for the FBI when he makes a mistake that leads Sal to kill three FBI agents and their confidential informant.

That sort of thing doesn't just slip unnoticed into the night. Jeff is placed on administrative leave. In the meantime, the Mob hustles Sal out of town for a series of plastic surgeries and quiet time for studying the Talmud (not difficult for Sal, who is known as "the Rain Man" for his memory), and then resurrects him as Rabbi David Cohen in Las Vegas. Las Vegas isn't what it used to be for organized crime, what with the corporatization of gambling and casinos, but there are still ways for connected guys to muscle in on the action in secondary markets, including construction, strip clubs, and drugs not handled by the Bloods and Crips. Believe it or not, there's even a place for a man like Sal at Temple Beth Israel, whose growing complex houses two rabbis, a mortuary, a cemetery, and a private school.

Tod Goldberg

What makes Gangsterland irresistible is its noirish look at the immutability of an individual's nature and the consequences of choices made long ago, as the sequelae of Sal's massacre ripple through the world of criminals, informants, and law enforcement. Writer Goldberg unspools his character-driven tale as if there's no other way it could happen. It's not surprising Sal becomes a killer in the first place: his dad was a gangster who died when he was thrown off a building, and Sal grew up committing crimes for his cousin. What were his options, and how were choices made by and for him? Sal doesn't get any pleasure from murdering people, but his bosses are always finding someone whom they think needs killing. Sal's life motto can be summed up with the words, "Everybody dies," and he knows it will be his turn one of these days.

Currently, he's stuck in Las Vegas, forbidden to call his wife and unable to look in the mirror without surprise, but he has plenty of time to think about who's pulling whose strings, how he got where he is now, and what the Talmud says about starting over. The Temple's members love Sal as David. Does this change him? Does the demonization of Jeff Hopper in the press and the lack of support from his former FBI superiors stop him on his quest to find Sal Cupertine? Everyone in Gangsterland does what he or she has gotta do, or at least what they think they gotta do. Sartre, anyone? They all gotta cross that road.

The Long Island Red symbolizes Achilles and his
lover, Briseis, both of whom have flame-colored hair.

It's a long road in time and space from 1990s Las Vegas to the Trojan War in the 12th century BC. It's also a leap from the noir of Goldberg's Gangsterland to the historical fiction/romance of Judith Starkston's Hand of Fire (Fireship Press, September 10, 2014), but both books tackle human nature, fate, and self-determination.

We can't discuss the humans of Greek mythology without mentioning the gods, who like to venture down from Olympus and meddle in mortals' lives. Favored mortals sometimes become pawns in the gods' Machiavellian games, although as famous Greek warrior and half-god Achilles says, "The gods and goddesses can do many things as suits them, but they cannot alter fate. Goddesses must bow before fate no matter how much it grieves them." Achilles doesn't have far to look for an example: his mother, the sea nymph Thetis, didn't succeed at burning away all his mortality when he was a baby. They are both aware of the prophecy that he will not return from the Trojan War.

As we know from Homer's Iliad, the Trojan War was prompted by Aphrodite's promise that Trojan prince Paris could have the world's most beautiful woman. Thus, Paris abducted––or eloped with––Queen Helen of Sparta. Her husband's brother, King Agamemnon of Mycenae, led forces gathered from around the Hellenic world to lay siege to Troy and get her back. While the Greeks are waiting, Agamemnon orders Achilles to pillage some nearby cities for treasure and women captives. While sacking Lyrnessos, Achilles meets Briseis, a beautiful young healing priestess and wife of Prince Mynes, when she tries to kill him. Of course, they fall in love.

Judith Starkston

While Hand of Fire may be too heavy on the romance for some readers, it is a carefully researched and beautifully written portrait of Briseis, one of the Iliad's minor characters, beginning with the death of her mother and her growth as a healing priestess to her life as a captive and Achilles' lover. It's been a while since I've read Ovid and Homer, but Starkston makes Briseis and Achilles and their world come alive. The ending invites a promised sequel, although classicist Starkston plans a novel about Queen Puduhepa of the Hittites as "sleuth" first.

Oh, and so why would Starkston's characters cross the road? For Achilles, I'll go with Emily Dickinson's reasoning for a chicken's crossing, "Because it could not stop for death." Through dying, Achilles achieves immortality in legends. As for the independent-minded Briseis, I think Captain James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise has her number: "To boldly go where no chicken has gone before."

Note: If you love chickens, as I do, you might be interested in Stephen Green-Armytage's Extraordinary Chickens, a book of gorgeous photographs of unusual chicken breeds from around the world.

Dazed and Confused on Presidents' Day

It's a state and federal holiday, but who knows exactly what we're celebrating today? It's Presidents, President's, or Presidents' Day. Here in California, we're honoring George Washington and Abraham Lincoln; if you live in Alabama, you might be saluting George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Some parts of our country are generously honoring everyone who's ever held the office of United States President.

At Read Me Deadly, we'll focus on George Washington; however, we'll observe the confusion that's become traditional to the day. In other words, don't expect me to make perfect sense.

To honor Washington's military leadership during the American Revolution, you could read David McCullough's nonfiction book, 1776. Alternatively, you could strip off your clothes, close your eyes, and visualize Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze's 1851 painting of Washington's Delaware River crossing on Christmas night, 1776, before the Americans surprised the Hessians at the Battle of Trenton. Now, sing Yankee Doodle while you fill the bathtub with cold water and ice cubes. Clamp your teeth to stifle shrieks that would alarm your dog, and slip into the water with a mug of hot-buttered rum in one hand and the book of suspense perfect for today, Elisabeth Elo's North of Boston (Pamela Dorman Books/Viking, 2014), in the other hand. In the book, Boston perfume company heiress Pirio Kasparov does what few people could do: she survives four hours floating on a piece of wood in the frigid Atlantic after her friend Ned Rizzo's new lobster boat is sliced in half by an unidentified freighter. Pirio is rescued by the Coast Guard, but Ned is never found. As her father says, Sam Spade wouldn't let his friend go unavenged, and neither should Pirio. And, how can Pirio look Ned's young son, Noah, in the eye if she doesn't find out who killed his father?

I wanted to read this book as soon as I saw its synopsis, but I wasn't expecting the story-telling talent of first-time writer Elo. Pirio, who narrates, spent her rebellious childhood enduring punishment at boarding school. Now, she has complex relationships with people who seem real: her beautiful, enigmatic mother, dead since Pirio was 10; her self-absorbed Russian immigrant father and his second wife, whom he doesn't love; geeky Noah and his irresponsible, alcoholic mother, Thomasina, whom Pirio has known since boarding school; and her ex-lover, John Oster, a fisherman friend of Ned. This is a book that combines a quest with the examination of childhood memories, the compromises of growing old, and oceanic environmental issues. Pirio could have hired a private eye to look for Ned's killer, but that would have been a whole lot less fun. She's tough, smart, and tenacious—I hope we see more of her.

At first glance, the reason for reading Martha Grimes's satire, The Way of All Fish (Scribner/Simon & Schuster, 2014), to commemorate Washington may not be apparent. Trust me. Fish (you do remember the Delaware River, right?), the British (Washington fought 'em for our independence, and Grimes, an American, is famous for her series books named after English pubs, although this book is set in New York), hit men (think guns and the death of war), the world of publishing (Washington chopped down that cherry tree when he was a kid, and we all know trees turn into paper and books), and convoluted plots and lies (Washington didn't tell a lie when he confessed to felling that tree, but the truth is, he probably didn't chop down anything). We'll skip further sketchy evidence that Grimes's book is suitable for Presidents' Day and go directly to its first paragraph:

They came in, hidden in coats, hats pulled over their eyes, two stubby hoods like refugees from a George Raft film, icy-eyed and tight-lipped. From under their overcoats, they swung up Uzis hanging from shoulder holsters and sprayed the room back and forth in watery arcs. There were twenty or so customers—several couples, two business-men in pinstripes, a few solo diners who had been sitting, some now standing, some screaming, some crawling crablike beneath their tables.

Nobody got shot; it was the Clownfish Café's aquarium that exploded. Candy and Karl, contract killers whom we met in 2003's Foul Matter, had tailed literary agent L. Bass Hess into the café (Candy and Karl insist on getting to know a mark before they decide whether he deserves killing), and exchanged gunfire with the fleeing shooters. When they re-holstered their guns, they followed the lead of a blonde woman who had been reading and eating spaghetti alone. She tossed the wine out of her glass, filled it with water, and saved a fish. Pretty soon all the aquarium's fish were swimming in glasses and water pitchers, and Candy and Karl had a new interest: clown fish.

They are further interested when they discover the beautiful blond is the target of an outrageous lawsuit by Hess, who says she owes him money for a book written two years after she fired him. Candy and Karl decide to kill two birds with one stone: they'll neutralize (but not kill) Hess and rescue poor, innocent Cindy, who's been suffering from writer's block and victimized by lawyers, who may not be working entirely on her behalf. This involves recruiting Foul Matter's publishing titan Bobby Mackenzie and best-selling thriller writer Paul Giverney, and a host of other characters, such as a weed smoker who wrestles alligators in Florida during tourist season and a brainy Malaysian femme fatale so interested in the scheme that she's almost willing to work for free. If you haven't read Foul Matter, the references to that book's plot are a little confusing, but you're all smart people, capable of figuring it out, and, if you can't, well, President's, Presidents', or Presidents Day is a little confusing, too, and we're not talking about how you absolutely must understand this to the letter—we're not building a nuclear bomb here. Writer Grimes obviously had fun writing it, and I had fun reading this entertaining satire.

Happy holiday, no matter how you spell it or whom you're celebrating.

Hooray for the Hit Men: Cheering for the Bad Guys

Have you ever wanted to just kill someone? Someone who really, really deserved it? I have. As a mystery reader, I can fantasize plenty of ways to implement vengeance or vigilante justice. And it can be a good safety valve; having "murdered" my target (who of course richly deserves it) in several different juicy and lingering ways, I am completely over the whole thing and ready to move on. Hiring someone else for the job would never occur to me. Where's the satisfaction in that? Fortunately, I don't have the kind of serious problems that require ultimate solutions in the real world, but not everyone is so blessed. That's where the hit men come in.

Raid and the Blackest Sheep is the first book by Finnish author Harri Nykanen to have been translated into English. In it Nygren––who has served several terms in prison for various frauds and who was a suspect in a daring robbery that netted millions and received international attention––is making a retrospective journey of his life, delivering to friend and foe alike what he feels that he owes them. He has hired a young gunman, Raid, as driver and bodyguard. And if anyone tries to interfere, well, Raid is armed and ready to handle any situation that might arise.

For such an urbane, gentlemanly, nonviolent career criminal, Nygren seems to have made an obsessive enemy in uptight Detective Lieutenant Kempas of the Helsinki police. Kempas, sure that Nygren is planning another big heist, mobilizes his force to track the pair as they wander north in Nygren's distinctive classic V-8 Mercedes. Meanwhile, the more laid-back and tolerant Detective Lieutenant Jansson, in rehab at a spa for a back injury, is receiving occasional phone calls from Raid to reassure him that while Nygren is back in the country, no new uber-heist is being planned. When Kempas calls Jansson to get information about where Raid and Nygren might be going, Jansson feels compelled to get involved. The police have learned that Nygren has terminal cancer, and Jansson doesn't want him picked up by the grim Kempas. He cuts his sick leave short and starts looking for the pair with his sergeant, Hussen.

Also tracking Nygren and Raid is the psychopathic killer Sariola, along with a couple of his enforcers. Savriola had been a participant with Nygren in the lucrative Post Office robbery a few years earlier. While he walked away with millions, he has spent it all and is planning to help himself to Nygren's share. Since Nygren has a nonviolent and fair reputation among fellow criminals, he figures it will be easy. When they catch up with Nygren at a diner and pull their guns, Raid knocks Sariola down and pours a fresh pot of coffee onto his crotch––not perhaps the wisest thing to do to a vengeful psychopath.

I enjoyed the travels and travails of Nygren and Raid, and am pleased to see that another book in the Raid series has been translated into English. The author has written over 30 books in several series, and if Raid and the Blackest Sheep is indicative, they are a bit lighter and more humorous than many of the angsty, alcohol-soaked Nordics I have read.

In Martha Miller's Retirement Plan, Lois Burnett, retired army nurse and sharpshooter, and Sophie Long, her partner of 32 years, are having a tough time financially. The money they had carefully saved for their retirement was stolen by Lois's drug-user daughter, Brenda, who had earlier left her son, Matt, with her mother to raise (great daughter, huh?). A chance remark by a friend during card night sets Sophie thinking about a novel source of retirement income. Lois, who had been taught to hunt by an uncle as a child, had purchased an M-16 assault rifle years ago, before the new regulations requiring registration of assault weapons. Sophie reasons that they have an anonymous weapon, a trained sniper, and a fair number of acquaintances with righteous grievances who wouldn't mind paying a few thousand dollars (just a few; most of their circle are on fixed incomes) for justice.

Morgan Holiday is a divorced 40ish homicide detective who moved home to care for her aging mother. As her mother's Alzheimer's progressed, Morgan was forced to put her in a nursing home. While her mother often doesn't know Morgan on her regular Sunday visits, she can still beat Morgan at chess more often than not. Morgan's partner, Henry, is nearing retirement and lets her lead on most of their cases. The last thing he wants now is this complicated case involving the series of apparent professional hits close to home. Morgan is on very good terms with her neighbors Lois and Sophie––years ago she even babysat for their grandson Matt.

Lois's first job is a convicted pedophile who has begun hanging out and chatting with neighborhood children. Nothing the police could act on, of course, until and unless a local child goes missing. Another is an abusive ex-husband who has tracked his wife through three moves, despite court orders to leave her alone. The constant harassment and terror led the woman to seek a more permanent solution. The people Lois and Raid kill are all wicked and beyond the reach of the justice system. Does that excuse their actions or those of their clients in hiring them? It's such a permanent solution. What if it was the wrong decision, if some sort of redemption was possible for their low-life targets or, heaven forbid, the wrong person is shot? On sober reflection, tempting as it might sometimes seem, I think I'd better find a different retirement hobby.

Who Ya Gonna Call?

There are some chores we perform ourselves without much thinking. Washing the dishes. Cleaning the junk drawer.

There are other tasks most of us wouldn't dream of tackling. Subduing a rogue elephant. Performing a do-it-yourself appendectomy.

Then there are jobs like changing the oil in the car or tiling a kitchen counter. Some folks do these things themselves while others call in an expert.

Murder is that type of job.

A premeditated murder can be undertaken by a determined amateur but there are times a mere dilettante or gifted dabbler simply won't do. The potential victim is enveloped by security. The pool of potential suspects is shallow. The potential murderer is too fastidious to perform such a dastardly deed or not fastidious enough to plan and execute it without getting caught. Whatever the reason, the work is outsourced to a pro.

I've been reading about those times and meeting one assassin for hire after another. Fictional bodies have been dropping like autumn leaves from the trees. Let me take a breather from watching the rain of corpses to introduce you to some industrious professional killers.

The opening scene of Lenny Kleinfeld's Shooters & Chasers finds a freshly recruited pro criminal, sweet but dumb Emilio ("Meelo") Garcia, working at the absolute pinnacle of his abilities—he's waiting in a Chicago hotel room. His new boss, the man Meelo knows as Oscar, told him to stay put unless he wants a bullet through his brain. In a valiant effort to follow orders yet cope with his boredom, Meelo struggles to smoke only a "professional" amount of weed and literally gets lit.

Meanwhile, a famous Chicago architect climbs into a taxi to go home. When he arrives, a mugger kills him just feet away from the horrified cabbie. Cops Mark Bergman and John Dunegan easily follow evidence straight to Meelo but he insists he was in his hotel room and didn't murder anyone. The two conscientious cops are uneasy with contradictory statements by witnesses and Meelo's crazy story involving Oscar. Is it possible that a deadly mugging is really an extraordinarily elaborate professional hit-and-frame job? Of course!

Yeah, yeah, I promised an intro to the hitters but handed you the fall guy instead. Listen, you should meet those memorable baddies (Arthur Reid, Dina Velaros and Hector B) yourselves. I will tell you this: A more witty, rambunctious, hip and hilarious, soft-hearted hard-boiled book is impossible to imagine. Assessing Shooters & Chasers as if it were a wine I'd say it offers up an enthralling bouquet of Quentin Tarantino, the Muppets, Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen. Complex, savory and unadulterated pure fruit. Don't. Miss. It. Kleinfeld's sequel is in the works with a probable publishing date of 2013 and I am dying to get my hands on it.

Richard Straight took an unexpected career path to hit man. He was a Tchaikovsky-loving, Kant-reading New York City policeman with a good reputation until his wife was killed by a car bomb meant for him. Straight decided if he couldn't lick 'em, he'd join 'em so he called the boss of the Mafia soldier he'd been pursuing and asked for a job.

In Straight, the first book by Steve Knickmeyer, he is sent to Solano, Oklahoma to kill jeweler Arthur Taber. Straight's boss insists that Hamilton Coady join him there so Straight can give Coady some on-the-job training. The two hit men do not hit it off. Eliminating Taber doesn't go as planned and this summons two Oklahoma City private investigators, tough Steve Cranmer and his womanizing young sidekick, Butch Maneri. Events in Solano don't go smoothly for them either because the town's citizens aren't statues content to stand quietly in the park while two hit men mess around.

This well-written book is for readers who like theirs served hard-boiled with lashings of clever dialogue and sprinklings of humor. Despite their cynicism, the characters deliver some tender insights into the human condition. I liked this book and you can bet I'll read Knickmeyer's next one, Cranmer.

"It's a lot of work being me." Frank Machianno begins his narration of Don Winslow's non-series book The Winter of Frankie Machine with this lament and he ain't kidding. Frank is a Vietnam vet who now runs a bait shop on the pier in San Diego. He also furnishes linen and fish to restaurants and manages rental properties. A relaxing dinner out with his girlfriend means that while Donna powders her nose, Frank slips into the kitchen to ask the chef if he's happy with his current fish supplier.

Frank has a daughter entering medical school and an ex-wife to support. Yet he finds the time to make life good. Perfectly made coffee and pasta. Surfing with friends. Everybody likes and respects Frank but nobody respects him like those who knew him before he retired from the Mob. He was Frankie Machine. Efficient pro killer, honorable "made" man, no squealer. One night Frank the bait man has no choice but to perform a favor, meeting with a Detroit mobster, for the son of a West Coast Mafia boss. The meeting is a setup that forces Frank on the run from the Mob, the cops and the FBI. To bail out of trouble he looks back at his decades as Frankie Machine to figure out who in the Mafia now wants him dead. It's a gripping, tightly plotted and cinematic tale about a surprisingly sympathetic character and I cheered for Frank all the way.

Have you ever been caught with your mental pants down during an introduction? Not this time. I feel no humiliation admitting I don't know the real name of Thomas Perry's hit man. When his parents died he was raised by the local butcher. "The Butcher's Boy" is how the neighborhood knew him and how the Mafia knows him now. He's highly skilled in the arts of murder and life on the run, thanks to his now-deceased mentor Eddie. The Boy runs Eddie's advice almost constantly through his head as if he's fingering a talisman.

He needs more than luck in Perry's first book, The Butcher's Boy, when everyone is out to get him. Bad guys include Mafiosi and their connections, one of whom hired him. Good guys include the U.S. Justice Department's Elizabeth Waring, who analyzes computer printouts listing fishy deaths and whose expertise is the Mafia. She has long suspected the existence of a prolific pro killer. A pickup full of fertilizer that detonated in California, killing its union-member owner, catches her attention. Justice begins an investigation that explodes in scope.

It's a complex plot, engagingly told, well paced and suspenseful. The reader alternately accompanies the Boy as he ingeniously and energetically murders and copes with being chased by ramping up the mayhem, and Waring as she doggedly follows his trail. (I coped by taking the book into the bathtub and ingeniously and energetically splashed around. When I sensed Waring's frustration I ate Lindt truffles to deal with it.)

In Sleeping Dogs and again in The Informant, the Boy is flushed out of retirement in England, where he's been living as Michael Schaeffer. Certain Mob bosses are not ready to bury the hatchet with Schaeffer so he sets his jaw and travels back to the States to mow them down until they are. Waring picks up his scent in Sleeping Dogs and she's in full cry after him in The Informant. She wants him in the Witness Protection Program and Schaeffer wants to pick her brain about the Mafia don who's pursuing him. Neat, huh?

This is a series best read in order. The second and third books clarify events in the first and give more background about the Boy. I enjoyed these books very much. Elizabeth Waring is an appealing character, a dedicated fed who balances motherhood with her career and struggles with the Justice bureaucracy. I rooted for the Butcher's Boy because his enemies are plug uglier than he is. He's a pro assassin humanized by his desire to stay alive, an attachment he develops in England and most of all his bond with Eddie. It's a fitting memorial to Eddie that his Boy endures. I suggest you resist temptation to read one right after another or you'll be dodging bullets as you water your petunias. All the Boy's nonstop scrambling and inventive slaughtering made me walleyed and driving the car risky business but I've survived. Thanks, Eddie.

There are other hitters I want you to meet but they'll have to wait. I'm exhausted from evading capture. In coming weeks I'll tell you about these books:

Barbara Paul: Kill Fee; Teri White: Max Trueblood and the Jersey Desperado; Josh Bazell: Beat the Reaper; J. A. Konrath ed.: These Guns for Hire; Jerome Charyn: Elsinore; Frederick Forsyth: Day of the Jackal; Max Allan Collins: Primary Target; Lawrence Block: Hit and Run; Loren D. Estleman: Something Borrowed, Something Black.

I hope you'll try some of the books I've described above. Tagging along with these hired guns as they calmly dispatch their targets and fade quietly back into the woodwork can be very interesting. But pro hitters' lives are like yours and mine. Things don't always go without a hitch. The victim's neighbor pops over with a meat loaf or a solid citizen sideswipes the getaway car and stubbornly insists on an exchange of information. A pesky private eye decides to poke her nose in. What causes a blinding headache and more extemporaneous work for gunmen can cause rejoicing for us ignoble readers as we take unseemly pleasure in watching them desperately run up the death toll and run hell for leather outta there. Isn't it something, how exhilaratingly ignoble we can be?