What do you think?
Rate this book
The Kills #1
Sutler
Listen. There’s a problem and it can’t be solved. You need to disappear.
This is Stephen Lawrence Sutler’s last morning at Camp Liberty, Iraq. In two hours a massive explosion will conceal the theft of $53,000,000. Sutler, shaken by the blast and forced to go the run, is unaware that any money is missing or that he has been set up. His problems are just beginning.
Sutler is book one of The Kills.
The Kills is an epic novel of crime and conspiracy told in four books.
It begins with a man on the run and ends with a burned body.
This is Stephen Lawrence Sutler’s last morning at Camp Liberty, Iraq. In two hours a massive explosion will conceal the theft of $53,000,000. Sutler, shaken by the blast and forced to go the run, is unaware that any money is missing or that he has been set up. His problems are just beginning.
Sutler is book one of The Kills.
The Kills is an epic novel of crime and conspiracy told in four books.
It begins with a man on the run and ends with a burned body.
302 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 28, 2013
9 people are currently reading
132 people want to read
About the author
Richard House
43 books18 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author with this name in the Goodreads database.
Richard House is an author, film maker, artist and university lecturer. As well as the digital-first novel The Kills, he has written two previous novels (Bruiser and Uninvited), which were published by Serpent’s Tail in the 1990s. He is a member of the Chicago-based collaborative Haha. He is the editor of a digital magazine, Fatboy Review: www.fatboyreview.net
Born in Cyprus, Richard House is an artist and writer. His first novel, Bruiser, was short-listed for the Ferro Grumley Gay Fiction Award in the USA. The Kills has been longlisted for the 2013 Booker Prize. He currently teaches at Birmingham University, UK.
Richard House is an author, film maker, artist and university lecturer. As well as the digital-first novel The Kills, he has written two previous novels (Bruiser and Uninvited), which were published by Serpent’s Tail in the 1990s. He is a member of the Chicago-based collaborative Haha. He is the editor of a digital magazine, Fatboy Review: www.fatboyreview.net
Born in Cyprus, Richard House is an artist and writer. His first novel, Bruiser, was short-listed for the Ferro Grumley Gay Fiction Award in the USA. The Kills has been longlisted for the 2013 Booker Prize. He currently teaches at Birmingham University, UK.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
September 22, 2013
An interesting experience. I read the enhanced e-book edition, on my Ipad, so the "extras" - video and audio files - were embedded directly in the text. (I had originally purchased the paperback of all 4 volumes of The Kills but when it came I saw that it was far too big to carry around). While I thought at first that the videos/audio clips were a decorative distraction, I ended up feeling that they did indeed "enhance" the reading experience - the simple act of giving a character a voice made her much more present to me, and the videos (some beautifully shot) added to the almost dream like quality of the succession of exotic locales where the book plays out. I know that I, at least, reading as I do on trains, planes and automobiles, and while falling asleep at night, wouldn't have consistently gone to the website to see the "extras", so I recommend getting the enhanced ebook (NOT the Kindle edition) if you are going to read this at all.
I say "if you are going to read this at all," because at this point, having read only one of the four volumes, it is difficult to recommend except for the interest of the "new" medium. Sutler is a reasonably engaging thriller, with a fairly tense heartpounding plot, a dystopian near-now setting, a lot of exotic color (even when some of the locations appear - like so many of the deceitful characters - to have had their names changed, I couldn't find a Birsim or a Narapi in Turkey) and some funky "ripped from the headlines" plot points. The writing, however, unlike the videos, can be clunky, and (by design as they are all hiding things) we don't know enough about any of the characters' back stories to become deeply involved with them - with the exception of Anne, the mother, they are all a bit cold and abrupt.
However, and this is an enormous caveat, NOTHING is resolved at the end of this first book. This appears to be an elaborate puzzle, and I've only read the first piece. I will press on with the other volumes - I am certainly intrigued enough for that (and as another reviewer said, one feels that respect should be paid to the project) - and see if I have a more cohesive reaction after that. But, oh, what a time commitment!
I say "if you are going to read this at all," because at this point, having read only one of the four volumes, it is difficult to recommend except for the interest of the "new" medium. Sutler is a reasonably engaging thriller, with a fairly tense heartpounding plot, a dystopian near-now setting, a lot of exotic color (even when some of the locations appear - like so many of the deceitful characters - to have had their names changed, I couldn't find a Birsim or a Narapi in Turkey) and some funky "ripped from the headlines" plot points. The writing, however, unlike the videos, can be clunky, and (by design as they are all hiding things) we don't know enough about any of the characters' back stories to become deeply involved with them - with the exception of Anne, the mother, they are all a bit cold and abrupt.
However, and this is an enormous caveat, NOTHING is resolved at the end of this first book. This appears to be an elaborate puzzle, and I've only read the first piece. I will press on with the other volumes - I am certainly intrigued enough for that (and as another reviewer said, one feels that respect should be paid to the project) - and see if I have a more cohesive reaction after that. But, oh, what a time commitment!
August 5, 2013
The Kills is a 2013 Man Booker Prize nominated volume from Richard House which is comprised of four stand-alone novels. Sutler is the first of these novels.
“Listen. There’s a problem and it can’t be solved. You need to disappear.”
Stringing together these thirteen simple words in a way that aches with urgency, Richard House launches into an alluring piece of political crime fiction that sidesteps the trappings of the genre tag placed on it and boldly defies classification. Some might argue that this particular “type” of novel doesn’t merit a spot on the Man Booker longlist. They’d be wrong.
READ MORE:
http://www.typographicalera.com/sutle...
“Listen. There’s a problem and it can’t be solved. You need to disappear.”
Stringing together these thirteen simple words in a way that aches with urgency, Richard House launches into an alluring piece of political crime fiction that sidesteps the trappings of the genre tag placed on it and boldly defies classification. Some might argue that this particular “type” of novel doesn’t merit a spot on the Man Booker longlist. They’d be wrong.
READ MORE:
http://www.typographicalera.com/sutle...
December 29, 2014
[3.5] It would probably be better if one of the first Goodreads reviews of any part of The Kills sequence came from someone well acquainted with thrillers in print. I prefer them on film and TV and it might be more than fifteen years since I read anything similar.
Sutler was, then, a novelty, a pretty enjoyable one. I needed to adjust to the sparser prose which was different from my usual reading - and there's also a lot more here about what characters are doing than what they're thinking compared with your typical litfic - but once I'd acclimatised, the narrative was gripping and I read most of the book in two sittings. (I've read four and a quarter of this year's Booker longlist now and what all had in common, even those I was less keen on, is that they were engrossing reads.) The action-heavy narrative reminded me of other novels by screenwriters and film-makers, with their concentration on what can be seen. If both this and All the Birds, Singing are "literary thrillers", this one is more thriller than literary: there are some good descriptions here, but overall it's closer to the standard thriller. And funny sometimes too.
There were occasional clunks in the prose, I thought; better genre knowledge would have come in handy when considering them. Two or three ostensible deus-ex-machina moments too but I'm expecting most of these to be explained later in the series. And there were a few iffy tech things (e.g. no consideration of the timestamp when faking a digital photo, finding a IP address via received webmail, successfully making a hotel booking with a made-up credit card number). I probably wouldn't have read Sutler if it weren't for the Booker, but the Booker is also the reason I'm taking it more seriously than I would have if I'd somehow read it otherwise. It doesn't feel like something readers are meant to scrutinise. Broadly, though, it works.
Some distinctive characters here too, which I liked. (Incidentally, anyone assuming this book might be "too male" should - as well as putting away their fans and smelling salts - note that alongside the straight blokes working in militarised Iraq, among the cast there are several significant women and also a gay and a bi man.) But Sutler himself, aka Ford / Michael / Tom is almost as elusive in personality on the page as he is to those he meets whilst on the run. I liked this, found it a hook, waiting to get to know him, but perhaps some readers will find him too lightly drawn for a title character.
Oh yes, the "multimedia extras". (The reality was better than the term, at least. And they're all tangential so you can follow the story without the enhancements.) These aren't available seamlessly unless you're reading on an iPad - and I rather liked the way this book is a prototype format which most technology hasn't quite caught up with. It's quite normal to read a blog where blocks of text are interspersed with videos and sound files, so why ever not a book? I think visually and internally translate most things I read into images, so having some input for this, not having to do all the work for once, was incredibly satisfying. I enjoyed the extras which contained video, or sounds in addition to speech. Not so much the short monologues by a character: those were just more words.
One of the short films, Nathalie - Thunnersee I loved and watched three times. (If you also like hypnotic extreme-ambient music and arty subtitled, scenery-filled films where nothing happens, you may understand.) But the drawback of having to go online whilst reading a book - and when I can I switch the modem off to help concentration - was that I got sidetracked by games or other pages.
So one of the reasons I'm enjoying The Kills is because it's different, but it is also quite involving. It was a jolt, in a good way, to read something I wouldn't usually. And I want to find out what happens next in this story: the freebie ebook got its job done.
Sutler was, then, a novelty, a pretty enjoyable one. I needed to adjust to the sparser prose which was different from my usual reading - and there's also a lot more here about what characters are doing than what they're thinking compared with your typical litfic - but once I'd acclimatised, the narrative was gripping and I read most of the book in two sittings. (I've read four and a quarter of this year's Booker longlist now and what all had in common, even those I was less keen on, is that they were engrossing reads.) The action-heavy narrative reminded me of other novels by screenwriters and film-makers, with their concentration on what can be seen. If both this and All the Birds, Singing are "literary thrillers", this one is more thriller than literary: there are some good descriptions here, but overall it's closer to the standard thriller. And funny sometimes too.
There were occasional clunks in the prose, I thought; better genre knowledge would have come in handy when considering them. Two or three ostensible deus-ex-machina moments too but I'm expecting most of these to be explained later in the series. And there were a few iffy tech things (e.g. no consideration of the timestamp when faking a digital photo, finding a IP address via received webmail, successfully making a hotel booking with a made-up credit card number). I probably wouldn't have read Sutler if it weren't for the Booker, but the Booker is also the reason I'm taking it more seriously than I would have if I'd somehow read it otherwise. It doesn't feel like something readers are meant to scrutinise. Broadly, though, it works.
Some distinctive characters here too, which I liked. (Incidentally, anyone assuming this book might be "too male" should - as well as putting away their fans and smelling salts - note that alongside the straight blokes working in militarised Iraq, among the cast there are several significant women and also a gay and a bi man.) But Sutler himself, aka Ford / Michael / Tom is almost as elusive in personality on the page as he is to those he meets whilst on the run. I liked this, found it a hook, waiting to get to know him, but perhaps some readers will find him too lightly drawn for a title character.
Oh yes, the "multimedia extras". (The reality was better than the term, at least. And they're all tangential so you can follow the story without the enhancements.) These aren't available seamlessly unless you're reading on an iPad - and I rather liked the way this book is a prototype format which most technology hasn't quite caught up with. It's quite normal to read a blog where blocks of text are interspersed with videos and sound files, so why ever not a book? I think visually and internally translate most things I read into images, so having some input for this, not having to do all the work for once, was incredibly satisfying. I enjoyed the extras which contained video, or sounds in addition to speech. Not so much the short monologues by a character: those were just more words.
One of the short films, Nathalie - Thunnersee I loved and watched three times. (If you also like hypnotic extreme-ambient music and arty subtitled, scenery-filled films where nothing happens, you may understand.) But the drawback of having to go online whilst reading a book - and when I can I switch the modem off to help concentration - was that I got sidetracked by games or other pages.
So one of the reasons I'm enjoying The Kills is because it's different, but it is also quite involving. It was a jolt, in a good way, to read something I wouldn't usually. And I want to find out what happens next in this story: the freebie ebook got its job done.
August 2, 2014
Eerste deel van The Kills. Een 1000-pagina boek dat het tot de long list van de Booker Prize haalde. Sutler is een pseudoniem van Ford, een contractor voor een groot Amerikaans bedrijf dat aan de heropbouw van Irak geld verdient. Zijn opdrachtgever laat hem weten dat er iets mis is gegaan en dat hij er direct vandoor moet. Pas later hoort hij dat er $53mln verdwenen is. De verdenking ligt op hem.
Wel aardig boek, maar na het eerste deel nou niet direct trek om de overige 750 blz te lezen. Mss later....
Wel aardig boek, maar na het eerste deel nou niet direct trek om de overige 750 blz te lezen. Mss later....
May 2, 2018
I started reading this book on iBooks then somehow forgot about it for months until I reopened iBooks in anticipation of reading a book in the public domain (unreasonably, I use iBooks for public domain works rather than Kindle). I picked it back up easily, remembering more than I thought I would, which speaks to the quality of the storytelling and writing. The book is more literary than you'd guess, especially with audio and video clips that don't necessarily improve the experience. But this is a novel about identity and conspiracy and the force of the unknown. I'd very much like to read the next three books but doubt I ever will.
December 11, 2017
Unsure so far. Everyone seems to be named Paul which is extremely inconvenient. I'm kind of intrigued to see where this series goes.
October 28, 2013
The Kills is, apparently, a multibook multimedia metatextual experience. And good for it! As I clicked through pages in my Kindle, I would occasionally come across what looked like a link to an embedded video, or podcast, or some other digital artifact. If I had been on an iPad, maybe I would have checked it out.
Then again, maybe I wouldn't have. I'm not totally hostile toward these sorts of tricks -- I liked House of Leaves a lot -- but videos are not particularly welcome in my literary experience; not when specific characters are cast, at least.
What's left if you remove the stunts? A perfectly serviceable Le Carre-ish spy novel that sprouts from the Iraq War and extends tendrils into Turkey and Malta. (Interestingly, the basic setup sounds pretty similar to the novel that I understood Matt Quirk to be writing before he shifted gears toward The 500.)
The book isn't bad, but it's about what you'd expect. All of the characters capable of pushing the plot (including the protagonist) are inscrutable, powerful ciphers. The cast of civilians is colored in with grace, but all of them are little more than helpless foils (minor exception to this rule: the Turkish fixer who gets Sutler passage to Malta).
As others have noted, there is no resolution to the story in this book -- maybe it comes later in the trilogy, though the capsule summaries of the other books make that sound like an iffy proposition. The reader is left hanging on the empty feeling that (for me, at least) pervades Le Carre. I'd like to get rid of it, but I'm afraid I'm not prepared to spend two more novels' worth of time doing so.
Then again, maybe I wouldn't have. I'm not totally hostile toward these sorts of tricks -- I liked House of Leaves a lot -- but videos are not particularly welcome in my literary experience; not when specific characters are cast, at least.
What's left if you remove the stunts? A perfectly serviceable Le Carre-ish spy novel that sprouts from the Iraq War and extends tendrils into Turkey and Malta. (Interestingly, the basic setup sounds pretty similar to the novel that I understood Matt Quirk to be writing before he shifted gears toward The 500.)
The book isn't bad, but it's about what you'd expect. All of the characters capable of pushing the plot (including the protagonist) are inscrutable, powerful ciphers. The cast of civilians is colored in with grace, but all of them are little more than helpless foils (minor exception to this rule: the Turkish fixer who gets Sutler passage to Malta).
As others have noted, there is no resolution to the story in this book -- maybe it comes later in the trilogy, though the capsule summaries of the other books make that sound like an iffy proposition. The reader is left hanging on the empty feeling that (for me, at least) pervades Le Carre. I'd like to get rid of it, but I'm afraid I'm not prepared to spend two more novels' worth of time doing so.
December 13, 2016
This is a crime thriller, which is not my usual cup of tea. It has a very elaborate plot, and nothing is resolved at the end of this book. The enhanced ebook edition has links at the end of several chapters which link to extra material, pictures, videos, chat logs, etc. At first I though you had to go to these links and solve some type of puzzle, but they are really just there to enrich the reading experience. This book is part one of a four part story, and they are NOT standalone books, and nothing is really resolved at the end of the first book. I hope to someday finish the rest of the story, but it will not be a priority.
July 19, 2016
I'm not sure how he managed it. The ingredients were all there; mortar attacks in post-war Iraq, secret identities, an international chase, fifty-three million dollars in stolen money, political and financial intrigue. And yet, despite the interesting setup, this was one of the most tedious books I have read. Everything is just so very beige and is told through the perspectives of very dull people indeed. To top it off my copy was riddled with spelling mistakes. I'm surprised this was long-listed for the Man-Booker.
September 3, 2013
There appeared to be no discernible differences between any of the characters. They all thought and spoke with the same voice and attitude - it read like a poor translation from another language.
Also, I knew going in that this was only a quarter of the full 'The Kills', but it would have been nice to have had some sort of satisfactory ending. I want to know what happens to the characters - but nowhere near enough to go near the other three books.
Also, I knew going in that this was only a quarter of the full 'The Kills', but it would have been nice to have had some sort of satisfactory ending. I want to know what happens to the characters - but nowhere near enough to go near the other three books.
February 4, 2014
I was disappointed with this book. It was longlisted for the 2013 Man Booker prize for fiction. Reading reviews for the book got me excited. Although story was somewhat interesting ending with a dramatic cliffhanger, I don't think I will continue with the rest of the series. I give House an A for effort, though. The book's multimedia use made for a worthwhile experience.
June 18, 2015
It's hard to give this one a proper rating without seeing where this story goes in part 2. That said, it does a good job of forward momentum and keeping the reader curious about where things are going. Not as good at descriptions or character development. But that feels more like a stylistic trait. This one ends on a cliff hanger that suggests big things are coming.
May 1, 2015
WTF was that? I have no idea why this book was written. Just boring crap. One would hope that it makes sense in the context of the remaining 3 novels of The Kills but I am not sure when I will want to read those unless I am incarcerated and it was all I had.
December 30, 2014
Gravity's Rainbow? Maybe. Nobody is innocent, some are trying to do the right thing - the mother is anyway. And the gangster in Istanbul. The plot delivers the characters to crossroads where they have the opportunity to step off the path they want to be on. "Why shouldn't I?" they ask.
March 29, 2015
Wanted to enjoy this, but it dragged, had dull characters, and didn't do enough to set the plot moving. Glad I brought the first part rather than the full epic and don't now have another three books to slog through...
September 3, 2013
Sutler is the first book of four comprising The Kills - the Booker long listed epic novel. At first glance it is a garden variety crime thriller; yet, it may be much more.
More soon...
More soon...
October 22, 2013
FURIOUS! How dare it end with a cliffhanger?!
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews