Reviews - The Ax | The StoryGraph

34 reviews for:

The Ax

Donald E. Westlake

3.89 AVERAGE

zach_evers's review against another edition

4.0

dark funny reflective medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

111mirrorball111's review against another edition

3.5

dark reflective tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

afields92's review against another edition

4.0

dark funny tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

Content Warnings

johnvferrigno's review against another edition

5.0

dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

earwicker's review against another edition

4.0

Not so much a mystery as a look into the banality (and expediency)of violence. Westlake does an incredible job of portraying murder as a passionless means to an end. An odd story -- dark and completely amoral -- but a fascinating idea for a novel. A master of the genre pushes the envelope here. He'll be missed.

m1r0k0v's review against another edition

3.5

dark fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

tirnom's review against another edition

Don’t ever permit yourself to become yesterday’s man...

Picked this up out of curiosity for its soon to be released adaption by Park Chan Wook, and I was quickly engrossed.

This is what happens when you take the capitalist rhetoric that nothing is owed to you to its absurd extreme. Situated in late 90s America, The Ax relates new capitalism, its concomitant wave of corporate downsizings, and the effects it had on those unfortunate to have been swept by it. All which are captured throughout the murderous meditations of its main character on his morbid attempt at returning to a dignified life under a system that renders him worthless and obsolete.

Westlake had a lot to say about this epoch and its deterioration of character and relations, but none so more resonant than the evasive fairness of it all.