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The Killer Is Dying (2011)

by James Sallis(Favorite Author)

3.43 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

080277945X (ISBN13: 9780802779458)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Walker & Company

review 1: A lovely novel. 'Examination' of solitude and dying is too sterile of a a description, and though I hate to use the word 'meditation' because it sounds so hoity-toity and faux-intellectual, it has the same connotation as THE KILLER IS DYING, that ethereal drifting feeling you get when reading. This is one of those books that takes a month or two to read because, even though it is not very long, you reread sentences over and over, listening to the cadence and the space between the words. A lot different from the other Sallis novels I've read (which admittedly are too few) but still a Sallis novel, and proof again to how genre can become transcendent.
review 2: I found The Killer is Dying a curious read. It's elliptical, layered and somewhat ponderous, seeming to... more almost skirt around the edges of what might be considered the main story (the attempted killing of Rankin). For a short book, it's full of asides and tangent observations. The reader is given entry ways into the lives of the three main characters, small samples of their back stories, but it all remains a little bit elusive and enigmatic. One part of me liked this as it invited the reader to work with the author, another part found it frustrating that so much was left tantalizingly out of reach. Having reached the final page, my overall sense was that I never really felt I got to know either the case or the characters to any sufficient degree. Sallis' writing is prose with a nice cadence. His style and how he approaches the story has its charms, but for my tastes the story needed a little more depth and definition. There was enough here, however, that I'll give another one of his books a go. less

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