My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Hit Parade picks up where Hit Man leaves off, which is not saying much, really, as the impression you get at the beginning is simply that Keller’s still around, so his exploits might as well be chronicled. Not that they’re all that amazing. Keller’ just this guy who kills people, a contract killer, not a serial killer. What the difference? One’s a job, the other’s a hobby.
Keller does have a hobby, though: his stamp collection, which has given him enough reason to keep his day job as to make up for the fact that he murders for money. He doesn’t relish it, very much. He likes the satisfaction of solving a problem, and that’s, more or less, what Lawrence Block is offering his readers. You don’t take satisfaction from the deaths themselves, but you do enjoy that Keller perseveres. If reading is your hobby, Keller’s killings are required to keep you in stories.
If Hit List, the second book, saw Keller consider, for just a moment, the Jungian “big-picture” impact of what he does, then in Hit Parade he’s considering, just for second, the long-term emotional effects of his work. But he doesn’t do so via some crisis of consciousness. He’s not struggling with his soul, here. He’s just looking for motivation, and deciding to be motivated by a desire to get out of the business– which he can only do by immersing himself in the business to earn enough to retire on. And what do you think will be conclusion to that?
There’s two more Keller books to be read, so, the conclusion is pretty obvious.