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    The Butcher's Boy
    The Butcher's Boy
    The Butcher's Boy
    Audiobook10 hours

    The Butcher's Boy

    Written by Thomas Perry

    Narrated by Michael Kramer

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Murder has always been easy for the Butcher's Boy-it's what he does best and what they pay him for. But after the successful assassination of a senator, he arrives in Las Vegas to collect his fee only to discover he has become a liability to his shadowy employers. His survival at stake, he needs to kill them before they kill him.

    But first he needs to find out who they are.

    As the Butcher's Boy goes to work, police specialists watching the world of organized crime realize something has gone very wrong for the mafia. In the race to discover just what that something is, Elizabeth Waring, a bright young analyst in the Justice Department, is the best chance they have.

    But is she good enough to catch the Butcher's Boy?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateDec 29, 2008
    ISBN9781400180196
    The Butcher's Boy
    Author

    Thomas Perry

    Thomas Perry is the New York Times bestselling author of nearly thirty novels, including the critically acclaimed Jane Whitefield series, The Old Man, and The Butcher's Boy, which won the Edgar Award. He lives in Southern California. Follow Thomas on Facebook at @ThomasPerryAuthor.

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    Reviews for The Butcher's Boy

    4.5/5

    45 ratings15 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      For some reason, I'd never read this first Thomas Perry book. What a delight it was to read it now. Perry has such a fine hand with plot detail. Just the littlest pieces come together so beautifully. In Butcher Boy, you know the paid assassin and you know him well. You have no idea who paid him and neither does he. You also know Elizabeth Waring, a rookie FBI agent almost accidentally on her first case which she builds from the minutest details. The stories - Elizabeth's and the assassin's - run along parallel lines building to a remarkable ending. Perry is a master story teller.
    • 2/5
      All over the place. Is it about the hit man, is it about the Justice Dept analyst? The author certainly didn't know. Short enough to read, but I'm downgrading it as I write this. And here I am reading his next book ... .
    • 5/5
      The first book by this author. And what a book it is. Great story telling, compelling characters. So glad it was re-published.
    • 4/5
      Unusual perspective: the main character is a hit man working mostly for organized crime figures. Thus a bit uncertain who to root for when detectives and FBI fumble about. What the heck, I'm from Chicago so I got behind the hit man. Well written and exciting.
    • 4/5
      Excellent thriller. The characters are very well thought out and have depth. There are no dull parts or filler. At times, it seems like the main character is almost super-human in his ability to operate under extreme conditions, but not in a cartoonish way.

      I will definitely be looking for more by this author.
    • 4/5
      The Butcher's Boy is Perry's first novel, re-released in 2003. In large format, of course, so the publisher can charge more. Even so, it is worth it. The eponymous Butcher's Boy is the unnamed assassin that has been hired to kill a local union member and a US Senator from Colorado. Eventually he ends up in the middle of a mafia cover-up in Vegas while he's trying to get paid for the jobs.He is pursued by Elizabeth Waring of the Justice Department. She is part of a department dedicated to organized crime, and specifically to trying to identify assassins. She ends up sent out from D.C. to California, then Colorado and finally Vegas in pursuit of the Butcher's Boy though she doesn't initially know all the bits are connected, let alone by a professional assassin.What is amazing is that Perry can make a cold-blooded killer with no name, no background, and no particular future, such an intensely involving character. It really amounts to a week or so in the life of an assassin. There is no heavy-handed exposition. Perry allows you to find out about how tricky the job is and a bit about how the business works as it comes out very naturally in the Butcher's Boy's actions and inner dialog. With good writing and pacing an unusual and appalling job becomes the story of someone highly skilled doing a very difficult job well for employers who don't really appreciate his talents. Something we can all relate to, even if at the end of the novel we wonder at ourselves for empathizing with a truly evil man.
    • 4/5
      The Butcher's Boy may have won awards when it was published but it hasn't aged well. Technology's advances in the last 30 years make such scenes as Justice Department agents being called to 'answer the white courtesy phone' at the airport positively grating. The book's one saving grace is the title character; the 'unnamed' assassin. He may not have the mad skills of the Jackal but he is an engaging character and I was more interested in what happened to him than in any other character.
    • 4/5
      Mafia hit man The Butcher's boy kills a senior Senator from Colorado. His troubles start when he travels to Las Vegas to collect his $200,000 fee. Now it seems he's become a liability and he becomes the pursued. Other hired killers are sent after The Butcher Boy but none prove to be successful. Will he find out who hired him and who wants him dead. A great first thriller from Thomas Perry.
    • 3/5
      I liked this thriller about a hitman who one grows to like. It is tightly plotted, well written and as believable as you get in this genre.
    • 4/5
      It's clear that I'm a bit jaded: I was expecting a gory smash-em-up story, but this is, instead, a calm-cool-and-collected story about a hitman just trying to make his living. I quite liked it, even though it was nothing like what I expected. It is very similar to Lawrence Block's Keller series (which are more recent and, as such, the main character has to worry about DNA and not about physically attending a bank to get at his cash).I didn't really like the whole FBI/Justice Department component - it was rather boring and choppy. I didn't care about any of these investigators and it seems as though people in these parts of the story were just randomly killed - an agent here, an agent there, a bad guy turned informant here... but I don't know what the point of all that was since it didn't really advance the story, and most of these killings were done "off-stage" anyway. Anyway, I see there is a followup book about the Butcher's boy so I'll go take a look at that one.
    • 5/5
      If not his best then I'm hard pressed to name another. Metzger's dog was pretty good, I've read both at least 5 times each, currently rereading Sleeping Dogs, my first Perry novel. I might put Sleeping Dogs a little ahead of BB but you always love your first. The 4th in the series, Eddie's Boy, I read in one night, great book as well. I'm not a fan of the Jane W. Series for some reason. The books move like he is a hero and you really start to believe in him. I with Perry would expand on his early hits, probably would be entertaining.
    • 5/5
      Outstanding! Never really knew what was coming next.
    • 3/5
      There are both advantages and disadvantages to the preference of reading books in a series in order. An obvious plus is that surprises are not ruined when referenced or built upon in later works. The most common drawback is encountering an author before he has learned the ins and outs of his craft. Unfortunately, The Butcher’s Boy is an example of the later. Throughout most of the book I kept wondering, Did he have an editor?The novel follows two characters on their separate journeys: a professional killer known only by the title of the book (though I understand he gets a proper name later in the series) and Elizabeth Waring, a Justice Department analyst forced into the field on an evidence-gathering assignment, which eventually turns into the tracking of the assassin. It is interesting in premise. It’s in the execution that it begins to fray.Even allowing for thirty-four years--it was copyrighted in 1982--it was absurdly easy to kill both a U.S. Senator and a mafia chieftain, each with no preplanning. And twice the assassin openly and dramatically slips by pursuers and ducks out of sight, only to complete the rest of his escape “off-screen.” Meanwhile Elizabeth makes multiple mistakes, the first of which is incredibly stupid. In all fairness, though, her second error could be safely put down to inexperience. Still, as the story winds down her end begins to sag.Perhaps the most interesting thing--in my copy, anyway (Random House, 2003)--is the introduction by Michael Connelly, where he does virtual gymnastics to avoid calling The Butcher’s Boy a great novel. He calls it a favorite, and praises character and pace, and remarks on Perry’s grasp of “the cornerstones of craft.” Connelly also reminds us that the author continues to get better and that this particular work won an Edgar Award. The last is certainly true. But the Edgar was for Best First Novel. In any given year the competition could be fierce or extremely light. I suspect light.But there is something here. I find myself wanting to read more. Neither can I deny I was disappointed.
    • 4/5
      Another great book by Perry. I'm not a fan of US mobster stories but Perry tells great story.
    • 5/5
      the butchers boy is a great character, perry tells you allmost nothing about him but you feel like you know him