The Ethical Assassin

I haven't read any other books by this author, who seems primarily to write historical fiction mysteries. I picked this one up because of my interest in reading books set in Florida, as I attempt to understand my new home.
Lem Altick wants to go to college and has been accepted to Columbia, but he can't afford the tuition. He decides to take a year selling encyclopedias door-to-door to save money. He is surprised to learn that he is quite good at this job. He is a member of a crew, each of whom is dropped off in a neighborhood every morning to go door-to-door, and picked up 12 or so hours later. The neighborhoods they canvass are usually poorer neighborhoods, but aspirational: are there swing sets in the yard, or other indications that show more parents might want better for their kids? Lem is surprised at how good he is at guilting parents into buying something they really can't afford because it might benefit their children.
As the novel opens, Lem is working his way through a trailer park. He has spent a few hours in the evening convincing a couple that they need an encyclopedia set for their kids (of whom he sees no trace in the trailer), and is just about to secure the check when the door bursts open and the couple are shot dead before Lem's eyes. The shooter is almost as surprised as Lem to discover there is a witness to his actions. When Lem calms down enough to ask why the shooter killed the couple, he is told, "You don't need to know that. You just need to know that they deserved it." The killer doesn't want to have to shoot Lem too, and so he tells Lem to pack up and leave no trace he was ever there.
And thus begins a game of cat and mouse between Lem and the shooter, or "ethical assassin," Milford. Lem keeps running into Melford, and is never sure whether to trust him or to fear him. There's lots of Florida "local color" here too: hog farms, a very corrupt small town sheriff, as well as plots and subplots and characters involved in illegal businesses being fronted by the encyclopedia sales business. I sometimes felt I had slipped into a Carl Hiassen novel, and that's a good thing.
So on the one hand, this was a fun and decent read. Unfortunately, it soon begins to go a bit too heavy on the "ethics" aspect of the plot, and at times gets bogged down by discussions about animal rights and the horrors about the ways in which humans mistreat and torture animals. At times, the book verges on becoming a lecture, and that wasn't a good thing in a book that's meant to be a somewhat light-hearted mystery/thriller. As one Amazon reviewer put it, there was "a title more preaching than I needed."
Liss is a good writer. Here is what he has Lem say on Florida (the reason I chose to read this book):
"I hated the heat, I hated the white shoes and white belts. I hated the golf and the tennis and the beaches and the rundown art deco buildings that smelled of old people and the palm trees and the rednecks and loud transplanted Northerners, and the clueless Canadians who visited during the winter and the unremarkable sadness of the poor, mostly black, people who fished for their dinner in the stagnant canals. I hated the crabgrass and the sandy vacant lots and poisonous snakes and deadly walking catfish and dog-eating alligators, the unavoidable sharp-spored plants and gargantuan palmetto bugs and fist-sized spiders and swarming fire ants and the rest of the tropical mutants that daily reminded us that human beings had not business living here." show less

Long car rides.. one of my favorite things in the whole world. an extravagant excuse to burn gasoline, smoke too many cigs, drink excessive gas station coffee, pee on roadside trees, and eat copious amounts of jerky.

also a great time for the AudioBook, something i rarely have time for in daily life due to standard books, music, and other daily things.

on our recent trip to California, we planned ahead. Hitting up the Public Library, we gathered 3 Audiobooks. enough that we would not run out while on the road (and if lucky, would be able to finish at least two in out allotted road time).

we made it through 1 and a half. i will have to find time somehow to finish the second.

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The Ethical Assassin has been a bit of a desired read. At show more goodwill, on multiple occasions, both Jenn and I have picked this book up and perused it, waffling as to whether it is one we should invest 3 bucks in.

Turns out, we should have as it was quite fantastic. if not available at goodwill, we will end up purchasing it at powells or someplace full price.

David Liss spins a tale of Traveling Encyclopedia salesman Lem. He is just out of high school, working to get tuition money for his upcoming deferred stay at Columbia University (New York). He is a virgin in the ways of love. he is a damn fine salesman, working all the angles and soaking up the cash he needs.

the story seems to wander back and forth for a couple chapters, culminating in a solid knowledge of lems fears and mental workings. then two of his customers get shot in the head while he is about to receive their book purchase check. the assassin enters the room, seems like a fairly nice guy on the whole, even whilst ensuring that if Lem talks to anyone, he will become the primary suspect, with evidence against him.

1985 is the time setting, and there are no cell phones, no internet, no modern simplicities or plot crutches. It is is Florida, Hot, sweaty Florida… Katrina and the Waves on the radio, melting peoples brains as much as the sun is.

The core of the tale rests on the word “Ideologies” and how our whole existence is based around the comfort zone that all of society requires. it is well thought out and gets the brain juices flowing at some of the simplified concepts described.

some aspects of the book felt like a commercial for PETA. at points i wished i was a vegetarian, and others an ass kicking ball breaking vigilante. in the end though, i am neither of the above. i ate a double bacon double cheese cheesy double burger (with bacon) last night and i would rather screw than fight.

i would recommend this book highly. it will stick out in my mind whenever i see bacon… or encyclopedias.

mm… bacon… show less

Set in the 1980's, Lem Altick has just graduated high school and desires nothing more than to escape the cultural vaccum that is Florida by going to college at Columbia. That Lem is actually a nice guy is pretty surprising given the hand that life has dealt him so far: a deadbeat dad who stopped calling ages ago, a mother so zoned out on pills that she naps all day and only awakens to prepare meals and clean house, and a verbally abusive step-father who has reneged on his promise to help pay for Lem to attend an Ivy league college. Desperate to make money quickly so he can pay his tuition, Lem becomes a door-to-door encyclopedia salesman. If he can just get through this summer, then he might be able to escape his life. But life isn't show more finished screwing with him yet, not by a longshot.

Lem's carefully constructed plan for his future begins to fall apart when an assassin walks into the trailer where Lem is about to close his last encyclopedia sale for the day. Lem watches in horror as the trailer's occupants, Karen and the aptly nicknamed Bastard, are shot in the head. Now a witness to a murder for which he may be blamed, Lem finds himself mixed up in a tangled criminal web that includes an on-the-wagon pedophile, a rapist town cop, a bikini-clad Siamese twin, and an assassin who is, of all things, ethical and the only person Lem can trust. As Lem and the assassin navigate this world of drugs and animal cruelty, Lem learns more about who he is and what he's capable of than most people learn in a lifetime.

This is messed up stuff and Liss is definitely treading on ground traditionally covered by Carl Hiaasen or Elmore Leonard, so it's no surprise that I enjoyed it. There's a dark comic streak throughout the novel and several witty one-liners (and not so witty; I readily admit that my favorite line may have been "It smelled like the shit that shit shits out its asshole"--sophistication is never an adjective to which I've laid claim). In the beginning of the novel, it's a bit confusing as it changes from Lem's 1st person point of view and moves to a 3rd person examination of some of the other key players, but if you just let yourself give into it, Liss is giving background about characters that will be prominent later. He wraps everything up and doesn't leave a loaded gun in the corner unless someone's going to blow someone else's ass off with it. And that's really all I expect from an author. show less

Lem Altick needs to make $30,000 so he can go to Columbia University and escape from 1980s small town Florida forever. He gets a job selling encyclopedias door-to-door, and turns out to be pretty good at it. And then just as he's closing a sale to a strange couple living in a trailer, the ethical assassin bursts in and, yes, assassinates them. Lem is now on a tortuous quest to not get arrested, not get killed and get out of town. But first he has to make his way through more murders, crooked cops, rednecks, drug dealers, hog farms, a love interest, and animal rights activists.

Some reviewers didn't like this book because they found it had a preachy animal rights agenda, and I agree that that was heavy-handed. However, it's really only in show more two sections, and they are quite close to the end of the story. This book isn't perfect or without faults. Overall, however, I thought it was a lot of fun, and for the most part, well written. I will definitely look for more books by David Liss in the future.

Recommended for: readers who want to be entertained. One word of caution--there is a slew of extremely slimy and disreputable characters in this story, and as slimy and disreputable people are known to do--they swear and say some shockingly horrible things. This is completely realistic, but I realize that some people just don't want to have those words and images in their heads--no matter how true to life they are. Definitely rated R for bad language. show less

Lem Altick, a seventeen year old door to door encyclopedia salesman, is an unlikely protagonist in a novel filled with drug deals and murder. He is in the wrong place at the wrong time when he witnesses the murder of two customers in a mobile home. Concerned that he’ll be the next target, he strikes a tentative friendship with the killer, Melford Kean. Kean is also an unlikely killer, an animal rights activist who is a pretty likable person. Also involved in this conspiracy is a corrupt redneck co, and the company that Lem works for, which does a lot more than just peddle encyclopedias.

The major problem with this novel is that there is nothing remotely believable about the novel. The characters are quirky and interesting. The show more conspiracies are a bit much, and the plot is too far out there to have any credibility. Basically, this novel is more style than substance. Although it was somewhat enjoyable from a stylistic point of view, it was not particularly good.

Carl Alves – author of Blood Street show less

Imagine your name is Lem Altick, you have just graduated high school and you're out selling encyclopedias trying to earn enough money to send yourself to Columbia University, it's been a long day of knocking on doors at the trailer park while the hot Florida summer sun beats on your back, you've been talking for hours to get the couple sitting across the table from you to the point where they are writing you a check for the deposit. Then an assassin walks in the door behind you and shoots both of your customers in the forehead. The assassin doesn't put a bullet in you as you might expect. Evidently it's an assassin with ethical standards, standards which evidently don't extend to not manufacturing evidence to convict you of murder if show more you become a problem. Imagine then that your problems have only just begun.

With an eccentric assortment of characters including corrupt cops and crack dealing encyclopedia salesmen, numerous plot twists, and a mix of pro-veganism/animal rights themes stirred into the pot, the Ethical Assassin is a diverting summer read with some genuinely funny bits. There were a couple of bits of the novel that I didn't think worked very well, one being a minor sub-plot about a creepy pedophile. My biggest problem was the novel’s conclusion on “why we send criminals to prison". It’s mentioned no less than three times as if it was of thematic importance, yet it would have been a better book if it had never been mentioned at all. I didn’t agree with it and I couldn’t connect it with the events of the novel.

On the balance however, the book is engaging and entertaining. Everything works to provide a fun and darkly-comic ride. show less

If Carl Hiaasen books irritate the hell out of you, this is not the book for you. (I just cannot stand getting moral lectures from assassins/terrorists.) I sorta knew this going in, so it was hard going at times.

The protagonist (who is NOT the assassin) is wonderful, and has the witty banter you expect from David Liss. It was great to see that Liss can write a coming-of-age story - not everyone can write a convincing and likable teenager.