Hit Parade audiobook

This is another very entertaining collection of stories featuring a hit man named John Keller. Like his creator, Keller is a New Yorker through and through, and his love of the city shows through here, particularly as Keller wrestles with the aftermath of the 911 attacks on the city. The attacks take an emotional toll on Keller, who responds by volunteering to feed meals to those responding to the crisis. The attacks also impact Keller professionally, though, because the new security measures that go into effect after the attacks will make it much harder for him to move around the country as he works professionally.Keller's associate, Dot, lives in White Plains and every once in a while, Keller takes the train up to see her and Dot gives him a new assignment that she has accepted, usually through a series of intermediaries that act as shields to protect the two of them. In this book, Keller takes a variety of assignments involving a wide range of targets, including an aging baseball player, a couple of businessmen, a few adulterers, and even a dog that has been attacking and killing other peoples' pets.Keller's been at this game for a while now, though, and both he and Dot are thinking about retirement. An avid stamp collector, Keller has been spending his money on stamps in recent years about as fast as it's been coming in, and he has no nest egg to speak of. Suddenly concerned about his future, he asks Dot to step up his "bookings" so that he can accumulate enough money to fund his retirement.This flurry of activity will expose Keller to some risks that he would usually avoid, but he remains as nimble and as quick-thinking as usual and so generally manages to still get the jobs safely done. In a conventional world, we should be appalled at the idea of rooting for a man who is a cold-blooded murderer, but Keller is such an engaging character that you can't help but enjoy the time you spend in his company, watching him work and listening to him reflect on the world around him. These stories are treasures.

Lawrence Block has always embodied New York to me in a lot of ways. He’s a guy who writes about the city with casual flair and great affection. I saw Block at a book signing a few months after 9/11, and he politely asked the crowd that no one ask about his reaction to the World Trade Center attack because he had lost friends, and it was still too raw for him to talk about. He’d go on to write Small Town which had a cast of fictional New Yorkers dealing with the aftermath of the attacks in varying and bizarre ways.But Block also had his regular series characters react to that day. Keller may be a hit man, but he’s also a New Yorker. Block wrote some moving scenes here with Keller being in Miami for a job during 9/11 and having an extremely unexpected and emotional response to the events in his home city. The ruthless hit man returns home and volunteers to spend his nights serving meals to rescue workers. While the book is typical Keller in that he has to confront a variety of complications while he carries out his work, 9/11 changes his outlook. The new air security measures make it more risky for him to fly to his targets with fake ID, and Keller feels a sudden urge to retire. He and his booking agent Dot decide that they need to do a lot of hits quickly so that they can both build nest eggs before leaving the business. But that kind of volume means that the usually careful Keller is willing to take some jobs he’d normally turn down.While 9/11 plays a part in the story, the book still isn’t overly grim, and it still has a lot of humor with Keller’s imagination and offbeat code of ethics coming into play as he tries to complete hits against a variety of odd targets. There’s even a bit of a sports theme this time as Keller tries to kill a famous baseball player, gets involved in horse racing and spends some time thinking about why he hates basketball.

In the third installment of his John Keller series, author Lawrence Block brings his readers another collection of short stories showcasing the humble hit man for hire.  This go-round we see Keller tasked with striking out a star baseball player, playing both sides of jilted lovers and even being forced to take out a fellow stamp collector.While the above stories entertain well enough, my favorite moments deal with Keller’s feelings about the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent effect they have on his job.  It was easy enough to buy a plane ticket under an assumed name in cash shortly before final boarding but now, with the overhaul in security, it makes everything that much more difficult and while there is certainly no shortage of work in the Big Apple, Keller often defers to the old saying “don’t shit where you eat” and tends to take the majority of his assignments out of state.  I found this really interesting – even criminals had to adapt to the “new normal”.Block has done such a masterful job of constructing John Keller that it’s entirely believable that someone can do this kind of work and not be a complete lunatic.  It’s almost like a switch that Keller is able to turn on and off and as a result, is able to successfully keep his personal and professional life separate (most of the time).  That might be easy for you and me, but when it involves beating people to death with a candlestick that may be difficult for the average Joe. but I guess it isn’t always easy to turn your mind off when being paid to knock someone off.  There are the odd jobs where Keller believes he needs to know why the person he’s been assigned to kill is destined to die, and usually those are moments brought about by a particular gut feeling.  So I like seeing Keller performing and sparring mental gymnastics with Dot over the sudden unexpected arrival of Keller’s conscience.Another solid entry in the Keller saga.  On to book four!

Is it bad to enjoy reading about a paid assassin as he goes about his business? Well, yes, if it wasn't written as well as this book has been by Lawrence Block. Keller is a friendly seemingly normal person who gets into the craziest situations when trying to do his job. He is no sociopath nor is he mad. Every story makes a sort of sick, but thoroughly enjoyable read and all along you are in total sync with him. He has a code and he pretty much sticks to it. If there is any downside to this story its the last chapter. Simple, straight forward and not funny. But then, not every hit Keller takes goes awry.

An interesting installment in the Keller Hitman series, this is more of a collection of stories and Jobs for Keller which provide a nice insight into the mind of this unique antihero ! The story highlight here in my opinion is the one about the dog - pure comedy ! The interaction between Keller and Dot continues to make me laugh and I'm looking forward to reading the remaining couple of books in the series. Recommend.

Block's affable, nice-guy, stamp-collecting contract killer is back in another collection of stories. I find the character charming, and while the whole concept of the series totters somewhere between absurd and morally repellent, somehow Block pulls it off. HIT PARADE is the third book in the series, and like the first book it's a collection of somewhat interwoven stories. As the second book in the series, HIT LIST, proved, Keller works much better in short story than novel form. HIT PARADE isn't quite as good as the first , HIT MAN, but I'd recommend both story collections for their engaging style, fast pace, and a droll cleverness. The story "Keller in Therapy," found in HIT MAN, is some sort of work of genius.

Lawrence Block and his Keller stories never fail to entertain.

I love this series. This book is similar to the previous two, comprised of several individual episodes covering Keller's assigned contract kills. Somehow Block finds a way to put a little different spin on each kill, finding inventive ways to approach the basic premise of Keller's assigned contract hits. Of course Keller does his share of soul searching and stamp collecting along the way. The overall idea here is that Keller decides that he needs to start thinking about retirement and providing for his golden years, so his plan is to start ramping things up. Hence the 'hit parade.' Recommended, but start with Book 1, Hit Man.

I'm starting to feel more a part of Keller's "life." At one time, I, too, collected stamps, and it was fun to read that one of Keller's victims had a beginning collection similar to mine. I am still impressed with the character Dot. She tends to Keller's interests and is a devoted but lethel friend. This was a good read.

I'm a huge fan of the T.V. series "Monk", "Psych" and "Columbo". This hitman Keller's quirkiness is right up the same alley. I cannot get enough...

Job description: candidate must be a diligent self-starter, comfortable working independently. Must be able to exercise good judgment. Cautious yet able to take risks when needed. Confidentiality a must. Also, able to kill people in a variety of ways, including bare-handed. In other words, holy shit

This was the best Keller novel up to this point. The first two were great, but the first one felt very episodic and Dot annoyed the hell out of me with her smugness in the second. Hit Parade is a great book and Lawrence Block once again proves that he's got the goods.I really love the Keller character. He's a calm, upper middle-aged man who collects stamps and murders people for money. These books are extremely well-written and fun. I love the banter between Keller and his employer, Dot. In the previous books I felt like there was a sexual tension between them like a "will-they-or-won't-they?" vibe, but I didn't see that so much here. I must admit, I may have been misreading that. (I'm not sure if I more hope I was or wasn't. But whatever their relationship is, it's entertaining to witness.)This was a fun book and like the previous entry in the series, it has inadvertently taught me a lot about stamp collecting as well as entertain me. I didn't think I had any desire whatsoever to learn about philatelism, but it turns out I was wrong. The Keller series is one of the all-time great crime series. On the one hand I'm sad that I didn't learn earlier in life about the goodness that is Lawrence Block, but on the other I'm glad because that means I have a lot of books left to read.

Keller series has become a way to chill out. The books are short and light, for a hitman series that is. But the matter of fact way that Keller goes about his job, killing people, really never makes you think that something sinister is going on or that he is a monster, though in this one he does entertain the probability of being a psychopath or a sociopath. Keller as usual is fed up with his work, or at-least he thinks he is. So, to fatten up his retirement kitty he takes one job after another, in a series of hits. The characters are not too complex, which is strange if you think about it, for people who are hired killers, this series portray them as any regular joe doing a simple job. Which is refreshing I have to say, the banter between Dot and Keller has always been the back bone of this series, and this book is no different. so, Keller keeping his strange reveries and sense of humor goes about his work and collect his stamps and deal with day to day events, entertaining us with every page. Its a worthwhile time-pass book.