Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
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Imagine Carl Hiaasen on crank. Or crystal meth.
Best-selling historical novelist David Liss dramatically switches genres with his new title. Liss has written a detailed series of novels set in 18th-century London featuring Benjamin Weaver, a Jewish ruffian-for-hire estranged from his family and from his faith. Liss probes topics such as the South Sea Company financial bubble.
The Ethical Assassin (written by David Liss and read by William Dufris, Brilliance Audio, $38.95, unabridged, 13 hours), is not historical fiction. Liss has written a contemporary black comedy stuffed with rednecks, corrupt criminal cops, encyclopedia salesmen, young lovers and meth-lab operators.
Goodbye, Britain. Hello, white-trash USA.
The audio follows the misadventures of Lem Altick as he tries to earn enough money to go to college by selling books door to door in a Florida trailer park. Two potential customers are shot dead at the beginning of the plot, and a terrorized Altick finds himself enmeshed with the erudite Melford Kean, the "ethical assassin" of the title.
The convoluted web of animal activists, hit men, bad cops and worse drugs is really just an excuse for Liss to go off track and allow his characters to rage against advertising, popular culture, step-parents, the treatment of animals and the eating of meat.
And the big question: When is freelance murder permissible and even necessary?
A warning: This listener adored almost every minute of the audio's raw 13 hours. Reader William Dufris captures the characters' demented voices, but the language is beyond coarse, and there is a creepy subplot involving pedophilia. There is an intensity and vitriol to The Ethical Assassin way beyond Carl Hiaasen at his most eco-furious. Some will love it; others will find it frightening.
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