Just Finished Reading The Ethical Assassin by David Liss

A few days ago I was browsing the shelves of my local public library and happened to come across a David Liss novel.  Never having heard of him, I decided to check it out and see how good a writer he is.  Well, I just finished reading The Ethical Assassin and...yes...Liss is a good writer, the book was enjoyable...and I left it feeling a little unsettled...

About sixty years ago, a blockbuster film, Giant, came out starring Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor, and James Dean.  It was ostensibly a love triangle intrigue about two young men in the old oil drilling days in Texas, vying against each other not only to strike oil, but also for the woman they both loved.  But a funny thing happened in this movie as it progressed: it turned into a different film, about a completely different subject...and the characters were also seen in a different light regarding how they treated it.  Something similar happened with The Ethical Assassin: it is initially a tale about a young man, Lem Atlick, selling encyclopedias to fund himself for college, who in a run-down trailer park witnesses the sudden, brutal gunning down of a couple with whom he was successfully closing a deal. But the assassin leaves him alone, although he forces him to leave his fingerprints on the murder weapon in order to ensure his future silence.  The rest of the story deals with the strange, nervous developing friendship between the two, the nefarious goings-on in that rural north Florida community...and that "different" subject I alluded to before, which turns out to be the key to the mystery about the assassin's motives, as well as to that unsettling feeling I got...

David Liss, with this book, gives me the impression that he is very familiar about northern Florida...especially the outlying rural areas and the culture of the people living there.  But as far as I know, he never lived here...although his Texas residence may also provide some insight and material.  It was still interesting to read about a hog farm on the outskirts of Gainesville...and the heart of the story takes place in a rural area a few miles from Jacksonville.  This is definitely not a promotion for my home state: as a matter of fact, the protagonist repeatedly stresses how much he hates it here and can't wait to leave.  But I'm not taking umbrage at his invective...Florida does have its crappy aspects, sorry to say...

Liss, in this book, also uses a device I've notice lately in several novels...including that Fall of Hyperion science fiction book I mentioned that I was reading: much of the story is told in the first person by the protagonist, but then other sections are told in third-person narrative form while getting into the mind of different other characters.  This third-person "mind-probing" writing approach dominates a lot of literature...George R.R. Martin swears by it in his Song of Fire and Ice ("Game of Thrones") series.  I wonder though, whether The Ethical Assassin could have been written completely in the first person, with insights into the other characters provided through the protagonist's experiences with them.  But I also recognize that, with at least one of them,"B.B", Liss had a side issue to bring out that necessitated this character's viewpoint to be fully expressed through his thoughts...

So by all means read The Ethical Assassin by David Liss.  You may or may not like it, but it isn't too long of a book and does provide some memorable characters, exposes and discusses an important issue, and brings to life some of the not-so-enjoyable aspects of living in northern Florida...