Hit Me

A return to his deadliest hitman, the beloved Keller, from bestselling author and Grand Master Lawrence Block.

The conclusion of Hit and Run (HarperCollins, 2008) found Keller living in a big old house in post-Katrina New Orleans, with a new name, a new wife, a new career rehabbing houses, and a baby on the way. It certainly looked as though he was done killing people for money.

But old habits die hard, and when the economic downturn knocked out the construction business, a phone call from Dot draws him back into the old game. His work takes him to Dallas, to settle a domestic dispute; to Florida, where he joins a government witness on a West Indies cruise; to Wyoming, where a house has burned down; and to New York, where he lived for so many years, and where people might remember him.

Praise for A Drop of the Hard Stuff

“Block is a mesmerizing raconteur … elegiac … a lament for all the old familiar things that are now almost lost, almost forgotten.” — New York Times Book Review”

"One of the finest in the entire Scudder series … highly recommended.” — Entertainment Weekly

"A Great American Crime Novel … good to the last drop. Totally gripping. The perfect introduction to Scudder’s shadow-strewn world and the pleasures of Block’s crisp yet brooding prose, [and] a bracing distillation of Block’s powers.” — Time

“Moving … elegiac … right up there with Mr. Block’s best.” — Wall Street Journal

"Sometimes you open a novel and you just know you’re in the hands of a master. In the case of Lawrence Block’s latest Matt Scudder mystery, the tipoff is a brazenly simple plot premise, faultlessly executed…Like a lot of great mystery fiction, A Drop of the Hard Stuff is also a ghost story. Matt’s attempt to exorcise his phantoms results in a classic tale about the stubborn persistence of memory and regret.” — NPR

LAWRENCE BLOCK is a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, has won multiple Edgar and Shamus awards and countless international prizes. The author of more than 50 books, he lives in New York City.