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A review by billymac1962
The Ax by Donald E. Westlake
5.0
About 20% of the way through this one, I wasn't sure it was going to be so great. It's written in the 1st person, and with a fun concept: a 51 year old man who has been unemployed for 2 years decides to start killing off the competition for a job he wants.
The reason I was losing my enthusiasm early on was that it seemed the novel was becoming redundant. Well, that changed about a third of the way in. I got hooked big time.
Like the human train wrecks of A Simple Plan and The Big Picture, we ride alongside our anti-hero as he plots his path of murder. This is not a sympathetic character. He is a psychopath. Although he feels entirely justified, this does not wash with the reader (one would hope). His actions and thoughts expose an amoral sociopath, and as a reader, you keep going because you just have to see how this is going to turn out.
When I finished the novel I was dumbfounded. The son of a bitch got away with it! My immediate reaction was disgust. My later reaction was a great admiration for Westlake for choosing this. The best stories don't need to end the way you would like, so evoking any strong emotions is a good thing when it comes to the reading experience.
This is the first novel I've read by Westlake, and I happily have the first Parker novel on my to-read list (by his alter ego Richard Stark).
The Ax was a fast, compulsive read, and exactly what I needed at the time. 5 stars for sheer entertainment.
The reason I was losing my enthusiasm early on was that it seemed the novel was becoming redundant. Well, that changed about a third of the way in. I got hooked big time.
Like the human train wrecks of A Simple Plan and The Big Picture, we ride alongside our anti-hero as he plots his path of murder. This is not a sympathetic character. He is a psychopath. Although he feels entirely justified, this does not wash with the reader (one would hope). His actions and thoughts expose an amoral sociopath, and as a reader, you keep going because you just have to see how this is going to turn out.
Spoiler
When I finished the novel I was dumbfounded. The son of a bitch got away with it! My immediate reaction was disgust. My later reaction was a great admiration for Westlake for choosing this. The best stories don't need to end the way you would like, so evoking any strong emotions is a good thing when it comes to the reading experience.
This is the first novel I've read by Westlake, and I happily have the first Parker novel on my to-read list (by his alter ego Richard Stark).
The Ax was a fast, compulsive read, and exactly what I needed at the time. 5 stars for sheer entertainment.