Killshot
Elmore Leonard
HarperCollins
<p>Armand Degas is a Mafia hit man the guys call Blackbird. He is cool and composed and knows a good score. So when punk crook Richie Nix tells him about his surefire scheme to extort $10,000 from a middle-of-nowhere Michigan real estate agent, Armand signs on. What the two thugs don't count on is Carmen Colson and her ironworker husband, Wayne, being in the real estate office when they go in to collect. Now Carmen and Wayne know too much and Armand has no intention of letting them survive to tell about it. But Wayne's sure the local cops are going to fumble the manhunt, and the best the feds can offer is the Witness Security Program. Now it's come down to one man, one woman, and two killers ... and someone's bound to end up on the wrong end of the gun.</p>From Publishers Weekly<p>Crime fiction doesn't get any better than Leonard's new thriller, which, while it breaks no new ground, is a welcome retreat to his more direct style of classics such as 52 Pickup and Unknown Man #89 . When Carmen Colson and her ironworker husband Wayne stumble onto an extortion scheme run by Armand Degas, half Ojibway Indian, half French Canadian hit man, and his temporary partner Richie Nix, a talkative sociopath, the two killers set out to eliminate them, hiding out with Nix's girlfriend Donna, a former prison guard who collects stuffed animals and believes that Elvis is alive. In detailing the killers' relentless pursuit of the terrified couple, Leonard builds suspense with a deft, master hand, inducing an instant--and sustained--response of sweating hands and a racing heart. Even the most jaded reader will be swept along on the roller coaster of impending violence punctuated by heart-stopping crises. As always, Leonard writes with a natural ear for offbeat speech and a terrific sense of locale, moving the action from Toronto to Detroit and into Michigan and Ohio, telling the story almost totally through the thoughts and dialogue of the characters. In the Colsons, Leonard presents a more mature and realistic portrayal of a relationship than he has in the past, and he stirs up an uncomfortable fondness for the cruel but mellowing hit man Degas, all the while drawing the reader deeply into these ordinary lives. A bravura performance. Literary Guild dual main selection. <br />Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p>From Library Journal<p>In this fine adaptation of Leonard's best-selling novel, Wayne and Carmen Colson's quiet life shatters following their involvement in a failed extortion scheme. To escape from hit man Arman "Blackbird" Degas and his sidekick Richie Nix, the Colsons enter the Federal Witness Protection Program. They soon find out the program contains as many predators as does the underworld. As with all of Leonard's (Cuba Libre, Audio Reviews, LJ 6/15/98) works, it is his character development and dialog that propel the simple plot toward its chilling conclusion. Bruce Boxleitner's reading adds a special effect to the story, and the adaptation captures all the power of the original novel. Highly recommended for all collections containing Leonard's past works.?Stephen L. Hupp, Urbana Univ. Lib, OH<br />Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. </p></br></br>