Killer Is Dying, The [Hardcover]

A "mystery" which is also a breathtaking and complete literary experience, this powerful novel "out-noirs" almost every "noir" novel I have ever read with its sad and desperate characters trying to cope with the miseries fate has dealt them. As they live their daily lives in various parts of Phoenix, none of Sallis's three main characters expect that things will change--they just soldier on, doing whatever it takes. The first character, Christian, is a Vietnam vet, a former medic who has been a contract killer for many years. Hired to kill a "nondescript office-dweller at a nondescript accounting firm in a featureless city [Phoenix] where everything is dun-colored," he has just discovered, at the outset of the book, that some other assassin has made the hit--and botched it. His goal is to identify the other hitman and complete the job for which he has been hired, but time is short: Christian is dying.

The second character, Jimmie Kostof, is a thirteen-year-old who has fallen through the cracks. His mentally ill mother disappeared more than a year ago, and his father, shortly afterward. Incredibly resilient, he has been staying alive in his house without being discovered by the authorities. His nights are especially difficult, however: he has somehow tapped into the nightmares of Christian, the killer. The third character, police investigator Dale Sayles, is also alone. His wife Josie, who is dying a lingering death, has disappeared, leaving a note explaining that "I'm not a survivor, Dale. I've known that all along."

The reader comes to know these characters through a series of impressionistic, descriptive episodes in which the individual characters are not initially identified. Gradually, one comes to recognize the different points of view from references to details connected with each specific character. In a literary tour de force, none of these characters associate directly with each other, and do not even know each other, during the action. They live parallel, not interconnected lives, illustrating stylistically the solitary nature of their individual lives. The minimal contact that eventually does develop at the conclusion is a glancing contact which barely registers.

As Sallis develops his themes by having his three main characters live their separate lives, he creates enormous sympathy for them, and the reader gains small measures of hope for them as they sometimes begin to reach out tentatively to connect with others. He also includes more information in fewer words than almost any other writer I have found. Every word and every image counts here, and his descriptions are memorably unique. A man's "belt buckle [was] recently let out a couple of notches so that the old half-circle hoofprints showed." The passengers on a bus are referred to as "Jonahs." Sayles, after a sleepless night, believes that "the light...out there somewhere in the night [is] feeling its way blindly toward him." Even small details, such as the books Jimmie reads and the TV programs which Christian sees and remembers reflect the themes and states of mind, adding to the novel's strength. Powerful, thoughtful, often heart-breaking, and complete, this novel reflects a kind of honesty that is rare in fiction. Mary Whipple

(WHAT YOU HAVE LEFT: THE TURNER TRILOGY; CYPRESS GROVE, CRIPPLE CREEK, SALT RIVER ) BY Sallis, James (Author) Paperback Published on (12 , 2008)
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James Sallis may be the most talented writer of American fiction you've never read - a highly skilled craftsman of achingly beautiful prose - dark, insightful, and unapologetically refusing to succumb to commercial pressure.

"The Killer is Dying" is a truly unique crime mystery in a genre so overcrowded that many try so hard too to distance the style, characters, or plot from the crowd, and inevitably fail. But Sallis weaves together the lives of an unusual trio - Christian, the contract killer on his last job, Sayles, a burned out detective watching his wife waste away to cancer, and Jimmie, a young teenager abandoned by his parents - resulting in the unlikely but successful bond of a mystery and coming of age story. As the terminally ill Christian tracks his last victim, he has senses that he is the one being stalked, while the resourceful young Jimmie. Survives by buying-and-reselling on line, inexplicably sharing dreams with the killer he's never met. Ultimately, this is a tale of death and dying, yet the author manages to leave the reader with a vague and nagging sense of redemption and hope - but only to the extent that some would describe McCarthy's "The Road" as strangely uplifting. Sallis' choice of Phoenix as the setting is fitting; the city's cold and sterile grit - despite the dry heat - provides the perfect match for the underlying despair.

"The Killer is Dying" is a novel to be savored, slowly digested, taking care to relish the details, nuance, and messages that run and cross and intermingle never too far below the storyline. Smart, complex, and poignant - a bold and brilliant effort from a writer deserving of far more recognition. Read this, then circle back to Sallis' outstanding "Turner" trilogy starting with "Cypress Grove."

In her fine review Mary Whipple has summarized well the plot of this existential novel. Nothing is what it seems to be; each character experiences much pain and suffering; trying to make sense of the events of the story keeps us on the alert in the hope that if we pay close enough attention we may begin to understand what is happening as the story unfolds.

As Mary has pointed out, three lives brush up against one another. Christian, the hit man, is a mystery man. He is a Viet Nam vet who saw the horror of that war up close and personal. Now he kills people for a living while he himself is dying slowly and painfully of some mysterious disease. The detective assigned to the case of an attempted murder that starts the story is also living with death; his wife has moved into hospice so he will not have to watch her die by inches. Jimmy, an abandoned thirteen year old living quite well on his own, completes the trio of main characters. Jimmy learns how to protect himself from the intrusive adults who will take away his freedom. Mysteriously, his dreams connect him to the nightmare that is the hit man Christian's life.

Author James Sallis won't make our job of trying to understand what is happening in this sad story any easier, even at the end when everything begins to come together for resolution. In the tradition of great novelists like Albert Camus (The Stranger), the reader is drawn in to a world that has little meaning, sense, or purpose. The killer is dying; no tears are shed; story ends.

As Mary has said, the writing in this spare detective story is often striking and exceptionally fine. Those readers who enjoy a well turned phase and sentence, may enjoy this novel. Recommended with reservations.