Near Enemy by Adam Sternbergh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Spademan is back for another adventure with his bleak outlook and black humor.
I love the character of Spademan, really enjoy his voice, and this time his clipped sentences and viewpoint seems to lengthen that little bit — maybe it’s the kid and her kid that he rescued from the last book that have mellowed him a little bit.
But while he’s more mellow it doesn’t mean that he’s any less cynical. When he arrives home to find a sort of competitor (since he, himself, is a hitman, a garbageman, as he coins it) nailed to his door “like a cheerful Christmas wreath” he takes it all in stride, his house crowded, not with carnage, but an almost domestic scene.
The book goes quick and you get the feeling that Adam Sternbergh had a great time writing it (I got a kick out of his use of Check-Off’s rental van towards the end, could imagine himself chuckling as he wrote that scene), which makes it a super enjoyable read.