This Gun For Hire

This Gun for Hire by Graham Greene
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

When a hare-lipped assassin named Raven is paid for a job with stolen cash, he becomes wanted for robbery and goes on the run with a hostage named Anne.

I was not a tremendous fan of This Gun for Hire. The book read like it had an identity crisis of sorts, like it didn't know whether it wanted to be a straight up thriller or literary fiction. I don't feel like it did either very well.

The premise is great. I love the idea of a hitman double crossed by getting paid with stolen cash the police had serial numbers for and then looking for vengeance. Raven is very interesting protagonist, an ugly man in an ugly world. I liked the characters of Anne and Raven quite a bit and had high hopes at the start. The book just never really grabbed me. The explorations of the characters bogged down the thrilling bits to the point where I was doing housework instead of reading.

That's about all I have to say. I got a pretty meh feeling from this book and was glad when it was over. Two stars. It was not without its moments.

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