FICTION

Kill Fee

by Owen Laukkanen
Putnam. Mar. 2014. 400p. ISBN 9780399165528. $26.95; ebk. ISBN 9781101624777. F
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Laukkanen creates intense, tough, amoral characters who profit from kidnapping (The Professionals), robbing banks (Criminal Enterprise), and now, in his third novel, killing for hire. While Twin Cities FBI Special Agent Carla Windermere and Minnesota State Investigator Kirk Stevens visit over coffee in downtown St. Paul, they witness an assassin shoot a billionaire twice in the head. As Stevens and Windermere follow his trail to Miami, Las Vegas, and DC, an assistant, Derek Mathers, discovers killswitch.com, a murder-for-hire website. Together, they learn how Michael Parkerson, a rough defense contractor from Charlotte, NC, befriends former soldiers with psychological issues, traumatizes them into becoming ultimate drones—eventually mobilizing them with stolen identities to eliminate targeted individuals for $200K a pop.
VERDICT While readers might identify with these good-man-gone-bad characters living frustrated and dissatisfied lives, they have to plod through the excessive procedural details that hamper the adrenaline-like pace of the rather bizarre plotline. [See Prepub Alert, 9/16/13.]
Reviewed by Jerry P. Miller, Cambridge, MA , Feb 15, 2014
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