9780061746024
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Hit and Run audiobook

  • By: Lawrence Block
  • Narrator: Richard Poe
  • Length: 8 hours 20 minutes
  • Publisher: HarperAudio
  • Publish date: August 12, 2008
  • Language: English
  • (2236 ratings)
(2236 ratings)
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Hit and Run Audiobook Summary

Keller’s a hit man. For years now he’s had places to go and people to kill.

But enough is enough. He’s got money in the bank and just one last job standing between him and retirement. So he carries it out with his usual professionalism, and he heads home, and guess what?

One more job. Paid in advance, so what’s he going to do? Give the money back?In Des Moines, Keller stalks his designated target and waits for the client to give him the go-ahead. And one fine morning he’s picking out stamps for his collection (Sweden 1-5, the official reprints) at a shop in Urbandale when somebody guns down the charismatic governor of Ohio.

Back at his motel, Keller’s watching TV when they show the killer’s face. And there’s something all too familiar about that face. . . .

Keller calls his associate Dot in White Plains, but there is no answer. He’s stranded halfway across the country, every cop in America’s just seen his picture, his ID and credit cards are no longer good, and he just spent almost all of his cash on the stamps.

Now what?

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Hit and Run Audiobook Narrator

Richard Poe is the narrator of Hit and Run audiobook that was written by 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.

About the Author(s) of Hit and Run

Lawrence Block is the author of Hit and Run

Hit and Run Full Details

Narrator Richard Poe
Length 8 hours 20 minutes
Author Lawrence Block
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date August 12, 2008
ISBN 9780061746024

Additional info

The publisher of the Hit and Run is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780061746024.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Mike (the Paladin)

February 03, 2010

If you have followed my reviews of the first three Keller books you will have noticed a change in this rating compared to them. The others were good solid 4 star reads, maybe even 4.5 but I wasn't willing to give them a 5. This one crossed into the "zone" of personal enjoyment I reserve for that last fifth star. I like it, I recommend it. (even though he does take a slightly low blow attack at conservatives...which won't bother you if you aren't conservative of course. I am, and i still liked the book.)My shock at liking a series of books about a hired killer has also been well recorded in those earlier reviews...but these books are exceptional. This one is even more so. Someone has set Keller up for a high profile murder he didn't commit! Consider the irony. This story leaves the gate at the proverbial breakneck pace, pauses only a moment for a breath part way through and finishes up at a considerable lope. This is a really good one.One other thing I didn't expect, given my usual and past reading habits and preferences....I intend to check out more of Block's writing.

Kemper

March 29, 2010

They say that all good things must come to an end, and apparently Lawrence Block decided to follow that conventional wisdom regarding his stories about the stamp collecting and slightly lonely hit man, Keller.Retirement has been on Keller’s mind going back to the first book, but now that his friend and booking agent, Dot, has parlayed the earnings from contract killing into big stock market gains, it looks like Keller may finally be really getting out of the hit man business. However, a job that they’ve been pre-paid for comes in just as they’re getting ready to move on so Keller is off to Iowa to eliminate one last target.As Keller is indulging in a round of stamp buying at a shop, a prominent politician campaigning for the presidency in Iowa is assassinated, and Keller’s picture is almost instantly on CNN as the suspected gunman. Since he just spent most of his cash on stamps, Keller is broke, on the run, and Dot isn’t answering the phone. Too late, Keller realizes that a guy who spent his life killing people for money makes a pretty convenient fall guy.You get certain expectations after you read a series for a while. Even when an author shakes up a formula for a book, you always assume that there will some kind of return to baseline in the next one. That’s why this shocked me about a quarter of the way into it when I realized that there was absolutely no way that the Keller books as I knew them would ever continue. There was an event at this point where it set in that I’d never again read about Keller taking the train to White Plains to talk with Dot about the latest job as they drank iced tea on her porch, or that there’d never be another scene where Keller would stroll down a New York street on his way back to his apartment to work on his stamp collection. And it was very disconcerting. (I’m making an assumption here, but it’s hard to read this as anything but a swan song for Keller. I guess Block could use the same trick that Max Allen Collins used for his hit man, Quarry, and introduce a series of stories told before he retired, but I think Block is done with Keller.)If this is the last one, then Block sent Keller out in style by once again having us root for the ‘bad guy’ as the inventive Keller scrambles to get out of Iowa and figure out how he can possibly have any kind of a life again. I hate to see the series end, but this was a great way to do it.

C-shaw

January 02, 2017

A library book. Oooh, this is so good, better than _Sinner Man_. I stayed up until after 3:30 a.m. on New Year's Eve, devouring this story!It seems counter-intuitive to root for a hired killer, but I guarantee you will in this book. When the killer becomes the stalked, the tale gets even more exciting. I could almost give this book five stars because it was such a quick and enjoyable read.

Brandon

July 10, 2020

Keller is in Des Moines, Iowa awaiting instructions on when to complete a hit when an urgent news bulletin breaks showing the sudden assassination of the state’s governor. Normally this wouldn’t be a problem for Keller considering he had nothing to do with it but when he spots his picture on television identified as the culprit, things take a drastic turn for the worse. On the run and desperate to connect with Dot, Keller has to somehow keep under the radar while coming up with a plan.This is a very different novel than the preceding three Keller adventures. Gone are the scenes of Keller and his taskmaster Dot jawing over iced tea, gone are the self-reflective moments wherein Keller plays with his stamps in his New York City apartment, gone are the multiple assignments with Keller jet-setting across the country. What we’re left with is a cat-and-mouse dynamic with Keller trying to stay one step ahead of the authorities while he tries to figure out what in the hell just happened.Block takes a crowbar and smashes Keller’s world to bits and I’m just supposed to sit here and take it? What gives, man! How dare you mess with a good thing? I guess I should have given Block more credit when things go pear-shaped because he knew just exactly what he was doing. I kept trying to figure out just how Keller was going to get himself out of this mess and of the multiple scenarios in my head, Block still happened to give me one I didn’t exactly see coming.There is a moment late in the novel that made me think a little less of one of the characters but then I quickly remembered exactly who these people are. They’re the baddies! There’s no switch they flip and all of sudden they’re upstanding members of society. I suppose Keller has been able to do that on a few occasions, but Block rarely lets his audience forget who Keller is at his core.I know there’s another book and another novella yet to read, but if this was the end of Keller’s run, Block couldn’t have picked a better ship for Keller to sail away on. On to book five!

Jack

March 29, 2020

4 Stars. He's John Paul Keller, "Just Plain" Keller, JPK, or Keller. Hit man, that's his job. For years he worked exclusively for a family in New York; later his only friend Dot handled assignments along with his personal finances. We're into a chase, more than one actually, and you'll find the ways he gets lost, which he works hard at, filled with desperation and revelation. This time "Call Me Al" has retained him to take care of someone in Des Moines. He doesn't really need the job, what with a few million in the bank, but why not one more before retirement to a quiet life of stamp collecting? He has already reconnoitred his target, yet he can't seem to get the go-ahead. Then the Governor of Ohio, also visiting Des Moines, is assassinated and Keller's picture is all over TV as the suspected killer! It's a set-up. He's spent almost all of his available cash on stamps and his credit cards can be traced, but he's got to get out of town. On the run he meets the wonderful Julia who may be his first true love. As a stamp collector, I can verify that all you learn here in that field is surprisingly accurate. Are you ready to feel sympathy for a hired killer? (August 2019)

Fred

December 10, 2013

I had read the Bernie the burglar series and enjoyed that so when I happened upon this book in our community library I picked it up. A stamp collecting professional assaassin? Since I collected stamps as a kid, I thought this might be interesting! Love the wisecracks and asides - "Can't take my tweezers on the plane? Why, are they afraid I might grab a stewardess and pluck her eyebrows?" Tough to warm up to a professional killer but it was enjoyable watching him work his way out of a prickly situation. Framed for a murder while he was in town to commit another, loses everything her loves - his assistant, his money and his stamps. Moves briskly along.

Ed

November 30, 2008

Fast-paced caper by Keller, the stamp-collecting hit man from NYC. Not overly violent and funny in places.

Jake

May 08, 2022

After the first book, this is probably my favorite in the Keller series and one of my favorite Lawrence Block books ever. Instead of sending Keller all over the country on hits, Block instead writes him as a conspiracy-inspired Lee Harvey Oswald-esque patsy, set up to take the fall for a political assassination. This was published in 2008 and I have to imagine the candidate shot was at least partially based on Barack Obama. At any rate, Keller is bouncing from place to place, trying to stay ahead of the law and figuring out who set him up (the why is never important in these books and I think that's part of what makes them so enjoyable). I wasn't a big fan of how it ended but beyond that, I enjoyed this new installation in the series, a series I truly didn't think I'd enjoy much before I sat down to read it. Block's work is so much fun and again, this is one of his best.

Maddy

May 30, 2010

PROTAGONIST: John Paul Keller, hit manSERIES: 4 of 4RATING: 4.25Lawrence Block took a risk when he created the character of John Paul Keller, a hit man. Normally, a person who is an assassin isn't likely to engender much sympathy or caring on the part of the reader. Block has managed to achieve that remarkable feat by creating a man who views his job as just that. He does it well, and we as readers get to look on while he finds creative ways to eliminate his victims. Somehow, despite the necessary violence, Keller comes across as an ordinary man who would rather spend time working on his stamp collection and living a rather routine life when he isn't out on the road on a hit.But somehow all good things have to come to an end, don't they? Although Keller had all intentions of retiring, there is one last job that he can't turn down. He's off to Des Moines, Iowa, and quickly realizes that the situation isn't what it was painted to be. Recently, he's been subject to huge bouts of paranoia and he has been taking even more care than usual to cover his tracks. But his employer has outsmarted him and managed to pin the assassination of the personable governor of Ohio on him—for once, a killing that wasn't pulled off by Keller. His face plastered all over the media, Keller goes on the run. Even though he's a rich man, he can't access his money and travels around the country wondering if he'll be able to buy his next meal. He has to give up all that he holds dear, including his apartment in New York and the stamp collection that he has worked for years to put together. Worst of all, he has to face the loss of those that were close to him. Just when dark clouds loom over his entire life, Keller meets a woman who literally saves the day, Julia Emilie Roussard. Could it be that after all these years of solitude and doomed relationships, Keller has found true love?Well, I'm sure not going to tell you that! Julia helps Keller rebuild his life, first through small things such as changing his appearance and then by helping him find other professional pursuits. Of course, the people who are after him aren't going to give up. And ultimately, Keller realizes that he needs to clear the slate if he is going to have any kind of future at all. So it's back on the road in an effort to untangle the plot against him.HIT AND RUN is different from the first three books in this series in that it does not focus on the various hits that Keller is performing. Instead, the plot concentrates on how Keller was framed and what he does to clear himself. A large part of the book shows what he is doing to become an ordinary man with an ordinary life; it's a story of redemption. Although this was extremely well done, it was a bit disappointing not to participate vicariously in Keller's hit man schemes. HIT AND RUN feels like the final book in the series. As it concludes, it doesn't seem possible that Keller could be tempted to take "one last job". But, of course, we said that at the end of the last book, so who knows? In any event, this has been a very satisfying series; and I can only wish Keller well.

Ryan

August 22, 2016

Great book! It's extremely easy to follow and supremely fun to read. Only issue I had was with one of the fight scenes, it was very silly and unrealistic, I've been doing martial arts for over 15 years. So poorly scripted fight scenes bother me. Other than that, this book is basically perfect!

Mike

January 05, 2017

It's a shame Block elected to once and for all retire Keller -- or maybe not. He is a great character -- right up there with other great fictional hit men. Do read the series from the beginning. It's like one continuous story line.

Michael

January 14, 2020

This is the fourth in the Keller series and in my opinion the best. Keller is taking one last job before retiring. He is told not to kill the subject until he is told to. So he waits around. To waste to time, he goes into a stamp store and buys some stamps to go into his collection. While in the store, he hears that the governor of Ohio has been gunned down. Back in his hotel, he sees that the are broadcasting his face as the assassin. He tries to get a hold of Dot and can't. Since he spent most f his cash on some stamps he is short on money. His credit cards and ID are no good since they are being looked for by every cop, and most people since there is a reward out on him. He finds his way out of town and actually does retire as a hitman and instead does construction work.

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