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Killshot.
Leonard, Elmore (author).
Apr. 1989. 288p. Arbor, hardcover, $18.95 (1-55710-041-1).
REVIEW.
First published February 15, 1989 (Booklist).
When a professional hit man gets in on a shakedown planned by a psychotic killer, the luck that’s kept him alive for 50 years starts running out. Trying to make the score, they run into not the realtor they’d targeted, but Carmen Colson and her ironworker husband, Wayne, who rough them up and run them off. The thugs decide to kill the couple, but that’s not easily done. Electing protection by the Federal Witness Security Program, the Colsons have no picnic, either. The cops treat them like dirt, the home they’re given by the program is a dump, and the deputy marshal guarding them puts the make on Carmen. Leonard’s gray and gritty new thriller is nightmare all the way, made fascinating by convincing characterizations, hyperrealistic dialogue, blunt-vernacular exposition, and some hilarious black comedy at the expense of Elvis nuts. Okay, the climax is routine and hard to swallow, but everything leaving up to it definitely isn’t.— Ray Olson
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