Der Killer stirbt

by James Sallis, Jürgen Bürger (Translator), Kathrin Bielfeld (Translator)

Nichts ist so, wie es scheint. Ein ausgebrannter Cop jagt ein Phantom, und ein Auftragskiller wird kurz vor Ende seiner letzten Mission von der Vergangenheit eingeholt. Mit traumwandlerischer Sicherheit inszeniert James Sallis ein Spielüber Leben und Sterben, virtuos erzählt, hart und melancholisch zugleich.

Ein todkranker Killer erhält einen letzten Auftrag. Er soll einen unscheinbaren Buchhalter zur Strecke bringen. Langsam umkreist der Killer seine Beute, um im richtigen Moment zuzuschlagen – doch ein anderer kommt ihm zuvor. Der Buchhalter wird von einem Unbekannten niedergeschossen, überlebt jedoch den Anschlag und wird schwer verletzt in ein Krankenhaus eingeliefert. Die Polizei steht vor einem Rätsel. Alles deutet darauf hin, dass der Mordversuch das Werk eines Profis war. Aber
warum sollte gerade ein Profi an dieser scheinbar leichten Aufgabe scheitern? In der Hoffnung, mehr herauszufinden über seinen geheimnisvollen Konkurrenten, nimmt der Killer heimlich Kontakt zur Polizei auf ... und macht eine furchtbare Entdeckung.

Genres: Crime, Mystery, Fiction, Noir, Mystery Thriller, Thriller, Audiobook

250 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

James Sallis (born 21 December 1944 in Helena, Arkansas) is an American crime writer, poet and musician, best known for his series of novels featuring the character Lew Griffin and set in New Orleans, and for his 2005 novel Drive, which was adapted into a 2011 film of the same name.

Reviews

[James Thane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is by no means a traditional crime novel, although there is a criminal--a contract killer named Christian--at the heart of the book. The killer is dying and he has taken one last assignment. His target is an unassuming man who works in the office of an insurance company in Phoenix. Christian scouts the man, learning his patterns, and then, just as he is about to strike, someone else shoots the man. Totally confused, Christian watches as the ambulance screams away, taking the victim to the hospital.

Christian is amazed by the coincidence that someone else would shoot the target just as Christian was closing in on him. But how could this possibly be a coincidence, and what could be going on here? Christian feels a professional obligation to complete the assignment and now must figure out how to get at the target who is hospitalized in an ICU. Meanwhile, as a man who has always lived a solitary life, he must deal alone with his own illness and confront his inevitable mortality.

At the same time, a detective named Sayles is investigating the shooting and tracking Christian. As he does, Sayles is confronting his own existential dilemma. His wife, Josie, is deathly ill and with no warning has left him to die in a hospice, without even saying goodbye. When he left for work in the morning, she was there; when he returns from work, she is gone.

Josie leaves a note specifically asking Sayles not to try to find her but to let her die in peace. he is gutted by the experience and must now try to figure out how to confront the new realities of his life. His partner, a detective named Graves, will try to give him the support and the space to work through this crisis, but for the first time in his life, Sayles is in many ways completely alone.

The final character in the story is a young boy named Jimmie whose parents, first his mother and then his father, have abandoned him. He is still living in the house that they shared, paying the bills by buying and selling things online, trying to prevent the authorities or anyone else from discovering that he is living alone, and attempting to come to grips with his circumstances. And, in addition to all of his other problems, he seems somehow to be having the killer's--Christian's--dreams.

The stories are interwoven, moving from one of the three characters to another sometimes from one paragraph to the next. This can be a bit confusing until you get into the rhythm of the book, which then becomes totally captivating and impossible to put down. This is a beautifully written novel about three men of varying ages adjusting to the solitude and changing circumstances of their lives, and it's one that I'll be thinking about for a long time to come.

[Bandit · Rating 4 out of 5]

My second read by the author and once again I'm struck by just how much I like noir when it's Sallis' noir. And this book is difficult to like, or at the very least difficult to recommend, due to its overwhelmingly bleak nature. Then again what would one expect from a title like that. The other narrative lines are from a cop trying to find the killer and a kid (absolutely terrific character) who is inexplicably linked to the killer through dreams. There is a stunning, dark, haunting sort of beauty to Sallis' sparse economic style of writing. His books are worth reading for that alone. Although this is marketed as a crime thriller, I would imagine that crime thriller fans might be disappointed, this isn't a story of a crime nor is it particularly thrilling, what it is is a solid literary character driven drama with some crime elements. Very much the opposite of light reading, but one that personally I quite enjoyed.

[Brad Hodges · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Killer Is Dying, an unsatisfying bit of hard-boiled noir by James Sallis, is all atmosphere and no terra firma. The story of a hit man who has a terminal illness, it departs from the usual mystery by being written in a highly literary style, with multiple narrators and a lot of interior monologues. But this ain't no Raymond Chandler.

For one thing, I read the book and I don't even know whodunit. The hit man, who is called Christian, has a target, but someone else tries to kill him before he does. Insatiably curious, he tries to figure out who tried to kill the man. "Why he was doing it remained opaque, impenetrable. Not pride. Not honor. Certainly not a sense of justice. But there it was, the road before him. And finally the why didn't matter any more than the truth of whether or not his tremors had actually stopped." Of course, if the main character doesn't know why he's doing something, it's kind of difficult for us the reader to figure out, and thereby the whole book is kind of a waste of our time.

The book also follows the police investigating the case, notably a detective named Sayles who's wife is dying. Then there's a third thread, involving a teenage boy who has been orphaned and is living on his own buying and selling things on the Internet. I may not have read carefully enough, but I have no idea how he figures in all this. Sallis switches point of view from chapter to chapter, and without warning. There were many times I started reading and realized I had the character wrong. It would have been nice if he could have titled his chapters with the name of the person we're with.

The writing is often quite strong, with good lines like: "Every human interaction, even the most unremarkable, is an economic exchange, he thinks: each side wants something." But the off-the-grid hit man character, with no home, no possessions, and no family, is kind of a cliche by now.

For those who want a straightforward noir mystery, skip this one. There's hardly any action, and while the pall of death is not unusual for noir, this one is positively morbid.

[Owain Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Meandering, medetative and unselfconciously modern. I can't think of any more words beginning with M to describe this but it was brilliant. Just the kind of terse, punchy prose that I love. Thin on plot and big on story/background but you never feel like you're being lead around the houses. Everything feels neccessary. There are cops and there is a killer but it's not about catching the bad guy. Instead Sallis pulls the crime/thriller genre inside out, replacing tension and action with a contemplation of loss and the poetry of everyday occurrences. The end result is a beaut of a novel. One of the best things I've read for a while.

[Marian · Rating 5 out of 5]

James Sallis continues to amaze me. Year after year, the tomes of some authors get larger and larger. However James Sallis produces these slim novels of fiction that are terse, poetic and defy categorization. The latest have been shelved on the mystery shelf at my library but they would fit just as neatly on the general fiction shelf. I hope that mainstream readers are wandering over to the mystery shelves or better yet finding this on the "New" book shelves that have no category. If you want to buy, you may have to order it. I have the devil of a time finding his books in the bookstore. When I see them, I usually buy them right away.

This book, "A Killer is Dying" alternates between three viewpoints, but you would be wise to pay attention. This waltz occasionally dances 2-3-1 instead of 1-2-3. The three viewpoint characters never meet even though a movie would show them all in at least one scene from the book. One viewpoint is the killer of the title who is dying of an unnamed disease. He is a perfectionist and the novel follows him as he chooses to find out who bungled the job that he was paid to do. The second character is one of the police detectives investigating the attempted murder. His wife is dying. The third character is a young man who has been abandoned by his parents. Struggling to live on his own, he inexplicably begins to share the dreams and nightmares of the contract killer. That much, you can learn from the book jacket and I will tell you little more. If you want a standard mystery, the book may disappoint you. Sallis is great for observing the rules of a genre and twisting them to his needs.

On another note, I have already started to see commercials for "Drive", based on an earlier novel. I am curious what will become of the book when it is transposed to an American movie format. American commercial movies are not known for subtlety. I read that the Lew Griffen books are also in development. I tremble to see what becomes of the main character who is Black, poet and a detective in an American movie. Do I sound as cynical as I feel about what I am likely to see on the screen?

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A professional hit man (Christian/ Jimmy) is dying and of course has one last hit to complete. Before he can strike, someone else botches an attempt of the target. Christian is driven to find out the who and why of the attempted murder. Meanwhile, one of the detectives assigned to the case has a personal life tragedy he tries to keep private (his wife is dying and wants to do it without him at her side) . The story moves from past to the present in a dreamlike state. What’s real? What’s memory? It’s less a mystery about a crime than a meditation on life, choices, and loss.

[Daniel Blok · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is not your average thriller or detective novel. Far from it. Granted, there´s a hitman, there´s a detective (in fact there are two detectives, but never mind), and there's a victim: the guy who gets shot at but somehow survives. And there´s certainly some mystery as to ‘who’ and ‘why’.

So yes, some major elements for a thriller are present.

But James Sallis has taken these elements and thrown them in a blender, stripping them from every stereotype we normally associate with thrillers or detective novels. What’s left is an atmospheric, bleak, philosophical story about life, dying, and death, about memories and dreams. And it’s very well written.
There´s hardly any action. Sallis doesn´t spell everything out, he keeps you guessing, which gives the book its typical suspense. I’m thinking perhaps if Don DeLillo decided to write a detective novel (of course he won´t), it might look a bit like this. At times, Sallis’ style, the way he describes characters and their thoughts and daily actions, reminded me of DeLillo.

The characters move through this novel as if in a mist, clueless, in a state of wonder. There’s the hired killer, dying from some nameless disease, who intends to finish his final job, only to find out someone else beat him to it (albeit unsuccessfully). He decides to stick around, see what happens, find out what´s going on. There’s the real detective whose sick wife leaves him to spend her final days in a hospice, who tries to find out what’s going on as well. Grieving inside, having hardly any clues, he tries to find his way mainly by intuition. And then there’s the boy who woke up one day to discover his parents had left him, and who is living by his wits from then on, alone in his parents’ house, hiding from prying adult eyes, buying and selling stuff via the internet. He lives near the victim, has dreams he does not understand, dreams that belong in the killer’s head.
Slowly, these characters revolve around each other, in circles that become smaller and smaller.

And then the mystery is ‘solved,’ but not in the traditional way.

The characters are thinking a lot. About themselves, what they did and did not, about other people, the world. What all this philosophizing comes down to is that we human beings, we just do not know an awful lot. Day in, day out, we stumble around in the dark, and if we’re lucky, we just might find a beam of light, another person, friendship, love.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is shorter than it appears on the account that the chapters are concise and that it's one of those novels that has to start a chapter on the right side. So while I did find it to go pretty quickly, it was not because of any invigorating page-turning events.

It seemed promising at the beginning: three different perspectives of guys living in the same town trying to figure things out in life. One's a hitman, who by the word of the title, is dying and is confused after finding out that someone has taken his assignment and completed it. Another is a boy who has been abandoned by his parents and has been living off buying and selling things online. The last one is a police officer who has to find out who has actually killed the hitman's assignment. I would have expected that the stories of three would weave together in an exciting sort of way, but instead it feels as though Sallis has left each character as they were when they were introduced: alone and flat of relationships. Of course, it may be that I missed something important, but things felt unfinished and unsatisfying.

What I did find out while reading this is that crime novels tend to have this sort of writing style about patterns of life and how monotonous lives people lead. I'll make sure to read Drive, but after that, I'm giving up on the crime genre.

[Hugues · Rating 1 out of 5]

Por lo menos puedo decir que logré terminarlo, pero NO me gustó, sorry.

[David Ärlemalm · Rating 2 out of 5]

Om vi hårdrar det handlar litteratur egentligen bara om två saker, att bli berörd och svart kaffe. Blir du inte berörd eller om kaffet inte smakar spelar resten ingen roll. När James Sallis, som jag läst sex böcker av i år, är som bäst skriver han sjaviga tjyvsmällar som träffar precis rätt. Och det serveras alltid kopiösa mängder rykande hett kaffe. I The Killer is Dying kan jag inte dra mig till minnes en enda droppe.

[Nigel Bird · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Towards the end, back when he still lived at home, his father, well along in years (fifty-plus when he was born), would spend afternoons stalking about the front yard, staring at what was left of the city’s curb, at remnants of paint on the side of the house, at abandoned birds' nests and tree trunks. He had always believed the old man to be thinking. About how his life had gone, maybe, or the meaning of it all. Slowly he came to understand that the old man wasn’t thinking at all, he was searching - looking aimlessly about, with a dull but persistent hope, for something he’d never had.’

The Killer Is Dying. The cops are dying. Everyone is dying. That’s something we all have to come to terms with at some point in our lives.

It took me an age to read this one even though it’s not a long book. I started it just before the Olympic Games which, when they began, quickly absorbed much of my attention and spare time. It wasn’t just my preoccupation with sport that slowed my reading, however. That’s also down to the fact that there isn’t a clear and driving narrative to the story and also because each chapter is dense and powerful and requires a good deal of focus.

The killer is on a job that goes unexpectedly wrong. As we get to know him, we loop back through his life to find his history is colourful and interesting and that he also has a wonderfully philosophical view of the world. He’s also a very particular kind of hit man and an extremely successful one. Hits are set up on the dark web and are advertised as doll sales. They’re carried out clinically and yet with a form of compassion at the same time.

He’s been chased down by a couple of cops who are also surrounded by death. It’s their business. They’ve seen a lot and each case has had an impact of sorts. The cop we get to know well is Sayles. What’s interesting in this novel is the sense I had that the differences between hunter and prey are minimal. They’re human and therefore share setbacks and suffering on a regular basis. What they have in common is bigger than what they do.

The third strand comes in the form of a youngster who is forced to bring himself up when his parents leave. He makes his living selling interesting items and passes the time by surfing obscure corners of the internet and by reading stories to old folk experiencing their final months down at the local care home. He also happens to be confused by a procession of dreams which come from the killer’s consciousness.

As these parts converge and are woven together, they become so tight that it becomes difficult to distinguish one from another. They share a consciousness or a way of being of sorts. They’re all reflective and tied to their memories as well as being able to see wonder in small things around them.

In the end, I was won over by the author. I can’t really explain why I liked it so much, but can tell you that I loved being in the company of these characters as their lives unfolded before me. It was refreshing to be taken on meandering journeys, random tangents and through regular lists of simple things. There’s just enough in the police investigation to keep the pace moving in a forwards direction. Each page has something outstanding to appreciate whether that’s a nailed phrase, a moment of poetry, a meditation, a philosophical musing or just a swift kick out at complacency.

The Killer Is Dying is light yet meaty. Mundane yet exciting. Beautiful yet horrifying. Oh how I love a contradiction.

[Gloria Feit · Rating 5 out of 5]

The first thing one perceives on reading the first pages of James Sallis’ new novel is the literal accuracy of the title: The man who calls himself Christian is a contract killer, a Vietnam vet now terminally ill, on his last job. A few pages later, something goes awry as the man he has been watching, who he has been hired to kill, is suddenly shot - - by someone else. And Christian is not sure how he feels about that.

The second character to whom the reader is introduced is Jimmie, a precocious youngster who has unexpectedly had to develop some strong survival skills when he is abandoned by his parents. Suddenly, and bizarrely, Jimmie begins having vivid dreams. The startling thing about this, other than the oddity of his dreaming at all when he was previously unaware of having ever done so in the past, is that the dreams are apparently Christian’s. And that’s just the beginning. A dying killer, a philosophizing teenager, a cop whose wife is gravely ill; disparate lives which only tangentially intersect, with the p.o.v. switching among them, which was briefly disorienting to this reader, but all to fascinating effect.

There are small master strokes with pitch-perfect thumbnail sketches, several scenes analogizing the actions of birds to those of humans. This is a book peopled by characters who are dead or dying and those they leave behind. But it is not maudlin, rather, thought-provoking. It is also full of existential musings: “The world speaks to us in so many languages . . . and we understand so few . . . He was thinking how kids back in school, kids these days too he was sure, always talked about being bored, and how he could never understand that. The way wind moved in the trees, the sheen of sunlight on glass or steel, a fly’s wings - - everything was of interest. You just had to pay attention, you just had to look.”

James Sallis, the author of over two dozen volumes, fiction and non-fiction alike, has again produced a novel which captured me completely. When I read and reviewed one of his earlier books, “Salt River,” I wrote “Mr. Sallis’ spare prose is wonderful, and the novel a deeply affecting one.” Those words are just as true for this book, and it is, obviously, highly recommended.

[It should perhaps be noted that Mr. Sallis’ next book, “Driven,” is due out in April of 2012.]

[La Lectora · Rating 1 out of 5]

Como todo lo que he leído de este autor hasta el momento me ha parecido que está muy bien escrito pero sus interminables monólogos sobre la vida cotidiana de los tres protagonistas que, encima, son diferentes pero son uno gracias a los sueños y al autor, me han resultado demasiado densos y no han logrado despertar mi interés. Le dejo sin terminar. Quizás le dé otra oportunidad en otro momento
pero por ahora abandono a este autor…

[Tom O'Brien · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three or four books in for me and Sallis's prose continues to be wonderful. For mood and intelligence, style and a hard boiled poetry, I can't find fault. I don't mind the lack of focus on the plot but in this case the lack of focus in the plot works less well for me.

It's an oblique examination of three men at different stages of life and their own lives, marooned in different though equally bleak ways. There is far more musing on life and philosophy than there is action or crime solving and while generally that is more than fine when Sallis is writing, in this case I became a little lost at times.

Somewhere in the centre of it there is an attempted murder, a thwarted hit man. There is also someone dreaming someone else's dreams, which is the element I expected to flounder on but which works more effectively than I might have expected. There is blindness, grief, friendship, loneliness and death. There is a lot for such a slim book, it's just that occasionally the style creates more barriers than it should.

[Johnny · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Sallis writes beautifully. He creates characters that breathe filled with flaws and doubts and life. Anyone who has read the Lew Griffin series knows what he is capable of.

THE KILLER IS DYING is beautifully written with living characters, and that appears to be the function of the book. It is not the story. The story is simple, very thin, merely a frame to follow the three main characters. It's a conscious choice, so not a fault, but by doing story the book lacks a certain momentum.

The most interesting choice is the decision to make the main character a contract killer. Where outside of genre books do you find assassins? Yet, for all its marketing and its title, this is hardly straight genre.

A somber, quiet novel. Worth a look, but if you haven't read Sallis, I would start with THE LONG-LEGGED FLY, a masterpiece.

[Ellen Dunne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Oh so bleak. This book is full of lost souls, disconnected and without the hope for redemption, scarred by loss no matter their age and some beautiful writing. A terminally ill professional killer, the policeman who hunts him is losing his wife to a hospice and a teenager fending for himself after being left by his drifter parents.
As mentioned, this is great, beautiful writing with loads of space for emotion and imagination. Still. A bit too much blackness and slowness and hard-to-believe story-lining for my taste. While no 5 blazing stars material, it still is rewarding, language-wise. But only for those with a strong up-beat mind.

[Ctgt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was my first Sallis book and it was definitely not your typical crime novel. Once I realized itwasn't a traditional mystery/crime novel I really enjoyed the story. Trying to figure out how these three different POVs would intersect kept me going when the overall story seemed to stagnate. If you slow down and enjoy the thoughtfulness of his writing I think you will enjoy this tale.

[AZRGHZL · Rating 3 out of 5]

James Sallis tampak seakan gemar bercerita perihal lelaki kesunyian dan hero yang tidak didendang seperti juga protagonis dari filem Drive lakonan Ryan Gosling yang juga diadaptasi daripada novel beliau.

[Harvey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I do like Sallis' spare style. Perhaps this was too poetic and too non-linear... it just didn't work for me.

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sallis is pretty much the high-water mark for contemporary noir, to my way of thinking. If there is someone better please tell me.

[Meg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Almost poetic. A meditation on death and those left behind. The writer makes the lasts days of a mercenary hitman sympathetic.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: a meeting occurs between a hired killer, a burned-out detective, and an abandoned young boy.

[JM · Rating 3 out of 5]

Odd one, Sallis again takes noir into a meditative space of tone and murky mood focusing on the blisteringly hot city of Phoenix and following three lonely isolated men of different ages as they go through life. Abandonment in different forms is a key theme here as each of the men is abandoned by different circumstances and none of them at first can deal with it in a positive way.
The titular killer is Christian an aging hitman who is is in and out of sleep never sure how long he was sleeping and racked by pain and regrets. Sayles a detective who's marriage is slowly crumbling due to disease and Jimmie a young boy living alone as his parents have left him. Plot is thin here as it is more about mood and discussing a certain malaise of masculinity in the 21st century and the removal of purpose from unchecked capitalism. I think because of how sleepily it is written will be a turn off for some people as they may find frustration with whether or not anything is building up or if Sallis is just writing down the characters thought to fill the page.
Certainly not a bad read but nowhere close to the quality of Drive, Driven and Others of my Kind.

[L.P. Ring · Rating 4 out of 5]

James Sallis is one of the premier American crime writers of the modern era, with works such as Long Legged Fly and Drive cementing his place as the 'thinking man's' crime writer. This work, as much a contemplation on death as anything else, offers a more philosophical take on the crime genre. A former Vietnam veteran has eked out a successful living as a contract killer but now finds himself being pursued by both cops and a rival killer. All the time, as the title states, he's struggling with his own mortality and the collapse of his own body. This won't keep you up at night turning pages to find out the next plot twist, but it might make you think a little bit more about the life you are living.

[Bene Vogt · Rating 2 out of 5]

What amounts to very little story told like a really bad fever dream, a generally oppressive mood with some very disorienting literary gimmicks.
Those are generally things I like, yet this book felt like a phenomenal drag, bereft of any drive whatsoever, just scene after scene of protagonists being lonely and having to deal with mortality till suddenly a guy out of nowhere explains what happened out of sight.
Also, one of the three POV characters doesn’t actually have any connection to the events of the rest of the book, but has the dreams of the killer in the title for some fucking reason that may or may not be high art.

[Daia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I personally think of this as an unfair rating simply because it's not the book I thought it would be and also because it's not the kind of book that I wanted to read right now.

However, I did manage to toil my way through it with what little excitement I managed to muster because I was so hung up with the premise and I was thinking perhaps It might actually go to the direction I was hoping it would?

But no, unfortunately the lengthy (for a 233-page book!), noir is devoid of a satisfactory agency slow-burn of.

While my first Sallis book, Drive, i

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've only read two of Sallis' books before this (Drive, Driven), and compared to their style of storytelling, I wasn't expecting The Killer Is Dying to have the level of surrealism which Sallis injected into the story. Also, this is a story whose characters live a bleak existence, with nothing to look forward to, only whatever the next day gives them, which is more often than not more bleak existence.
A fairly good read, glad I decided to give Sallis another try.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll add an extra star because this book hit the spot when I needed a quick crime read. It was a little difficult figuring out which character we were following at the start of each chapter until usually a page or two into it. Also, there's a weird Vulcan mind meld going on occasionally, which doesn't really seem to make sense. Minor complaints. I'll definitely be sticking with this author.

[Jerry Peace · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really like this book because all the characters follow this prescription- "You just had to pay attention, you just had to look." And it's a book of lists, which I think is a neat fictional technique. What I don't like are dreams and particularly extremely involved and remembered ones. So I kind of skipped the dreams. And feel better for it.

[Catherine · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book switches narrators repeatedly. The overuse of the pronoun "he" has the reader often puzzled as to which male character Sallis is referring. Add a couple of terminally ill characters and a boy abandoned by both his parents and you have a confusing and depressing story.