The Killing Spirit Edited by Jay Hopler
Canongate Books paperback 256 pages, £8.99
Review by David Clark (1996)
This ‘Anthology of Assassins’ is a refreshing, atypical crime fiction anthology. There are some familiar writers represented here, but the inclusion of a lot of old stuff makes it a much better introduction to crime fiction than most. The reliable Lawrence Block turns in a seductive tale, and master of nasty Andrew Vachss provides an incendiary contribution. Ian McEwan also features, unfortunately, with an extract from a forthcoming novel.
However, the book begins with Graham Greene’s ‘This Gun For Hire’, a story full of malign coincidences and bitterness that is now sixty years old. This serves as a statement of intent. Hopler likes the old stuff. There’s a tough guy Ernest Hemingway story, and a similar piece from Charles Bukowski. Damon Runyan, Robert Lowell and TC Boyle turn up too. And there’s a bloody great big block of Ripley’s Game, Patricia Highsmith’s 1974 novel and the basis of Wim Wenders’ The American Friend. It’s one of the best pieces here, with its amorality and its precise prose, but did there really need to be quite so much of it?
I wonder if the contemporary writers are included to bring things up to date. For some reason, though, there’s some poetry included. And an unoriginal screenplay. And oddest of all, the book finishes with a list of cinematic assassins. Hopler’s preferences here are as offbeat as his fictional choices. Whatever the reason, it is the old stuff that makes the biggest impression. •