Book Review: The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

Source: Amazon.com

The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning, by Hallgrimur Helgason

From the book’s cover:

With some 66 hits under his belt, Tomislav Bokšić, or Toxic, has a flawless record as hitman for the Croatian mafia in New York. That is, until he kills the wrong guy and is forced to flee the States, leaving behind the life he knows and loves. Suddenly, he finds himself on a plane hurtling toward Reykjavik, Iceland, borrowing the identity of an American televangelist named Father Friendly. With no means of escape from this island devoid of gun shops and contract killing, tragicomic hilarity ensues as he is forced to come to terms with his bloody past and reevaluate his future.



The Review:

Interesting book.  The synopsis from the cover of The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning, as taken from Amazon.com, pretty well sums up what happens.  If that sounds appealing to you, then you may like this book.  I didn't hate it, myself. 

I've said it before, and I'm saying it again: I am of two minds on this book.  One the one hand, the story is something well-trod (mafia hitman books that are part bragging/part confessional are nothing new) but this take on it seems fresh. And fairly unpredictable.  Especially the ending (I'm of two minds on that as well).  The writing is crisp, punchy, sometimes the proverbial edge-of-your-seat, and sometimes moving.  The characters are not terribly stereotypical, which is good.  And yet there is an air of familiarness to them, and especially our lead, "Toxic."  He's both an anti-hero and a tragic hero in many ways. 

The author, Hallgrimur Helgason / Source: QuayTickets.com

So that's the positive side of the review.  On the other hand, there is some dark stuff in here. Really dark. After all, we're talking about not only a mafia hitman, but a Croatian as well. The lead protagonist ("Toxic") is a former soldier who went through the horrors of the Bosnian conflict in the late 1990s/early 2000s, and we get to relive some of the worst of these experiences of war with our likable scoundrel main character. I won't ruin it for those who want to read the book, but eventually the novel delves into ground that... well we cover a pretty rounded off spectrum of humanity's inhumanity toward one another by the book's end. 

The change in the novel's tone at the end felt a  tiny bit "Huck Finn" to me.  As in you start off expecting the story to be one thing (if you've never read it), and then get a fairly heavy moral by the end.  But Hitman's Guide will never be put alongside Twain's masterpiece.  It's good, but it isn't in the class of read-it-in-eight-grade-English-class-and-write-a-book-report-on-it good.

Having said both something positive and something less than positive (depending on how you look at the latter, I suppose), let's cover the basics and then I'll shut up and let this review stand. Hitman's Guide has excessive amounts of violence, profanity and some sexual elements, as well as dark themes and mature content. That is the best I can explain it. This was both darkly appealing to me (I'm a bit dark myself sometimes), but also a turn-off as well.  There are some things covered that really made me shake my head, both with humor and then, sometimes at the very same moment, with dismay. I wish I could give specific examples, but sadly, my notes on this book got shoe-horned in between some busy weeks, and they were hit and miss at best.  You, as the review reader, get short-changed.  Sorry.

So take my recommendations, as always, for what they are worth.  Hitman's Guide is not light-hearted reading, though humor - of the dark sort, that is - is woven effectively throughout.  I'd say I liked the novel, but it was only a passing interest.  I wouldn't make a steady diet of stuff like this.

The vistas described in Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning are really impressive.  I couldn't find a specific photo of the cratered expanse that plays a vital part of the book's climactic scene.  So this photo will have to do.  If you want to see some really beautiful scenery, just Google "Iceland" and look at the images that come up. / Source: BBC.co.uk

Last note, the audiobook was first-rate. The narrator who delivered the goods did a great imitation of the various accents involved, which really made the book come alive. In fact, a drier reading of the novel might have made my review lean more toward a negative slant. Bias, I know. But there it is, just the same.

Learn more about The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning, by Hallgrimur Helgason on Amazon.com


The parting comment:

Source: LOLSnaps.com

The Hitman's Guide to Productivity?