The Ax
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
The multi-award-winning, widely-acclaimed mystery master Donald E. Westlake delivers a masterpiece with this brilliant, laser-sharp tale of the deadly consequences of corporate downsizing.
Burke Devore is a middle-aged manager at a paper company when the cost-cutting ax falls, and he is laid off. Eighteen months later and still unemployed, he puts a new spin on his job search -- with agonizing care, Devore finds the seven men in the surrounding area who could take the job that rightfully should be his, and systematically kills them. Transforming himself from mild-mannered middle manager to ruthless murderer, he discovers skills ne never knew ne had -- and that come to him far too easily.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Westlake is a consummate pro who can deliver both the cheerful zaniness of the Dortmunder novels and thoroughly convincing noir. The Ax is one of his darkest efforts, a mesmerizing chiller. It takes a familiar plight--Burke Devore, a middle-level executive at a paper company, has been downsized out of what he had imagined was a secure lifetime job--and gives it a terrifying twist. Not content quietly to abandon his decently prosperous existence, Devore searches out the ideal job at the ideal company and then identifies a half-dozen unemployed potential rivals for the spot and sets out to murder them one by one. Devore is quietly methodical, but not all the killings go quite as planned: in one, he has to kill a wife as well; another turns out to be much messier than anticipated; and then, of course, there looms the final necessary slaughter, of the man who holds the desired job. And will the police figure out what links these mysterious killings before Devore has achieved his goal? Writing with deadpan style, Westlake makes Devore's rage utterly believable. What he can't quite manage, however, is to make a convincing serial killer out of someone who is in most respects so normal, even decent and thoughtful. But the suspense is tight as a steel coil, the background sociology is impeccably developed and the book should have upper-level downsizers trembling in their Guccis at the thought of the hideous anguish they are unleashing on the land. Major ad/promo.
