No Exit Press - The Killer Is Dying by James Sallis

ABOUT THE BOOK

A hired killer on his final job; a burned-out detective whose wife is dying slowly and in agony; a young boy abandoned by his parents and living alone by his wits. Three people, solitary and disconnected from society.

The detective is looking for the killer, Christian, though he doesn't know that. Christian is trying to find the man who stepped in and took down his target before he had the chance. And the boy, Jimmie, is having the killer's dreams. While they never meet, they are inextricably linked, and as their stories unfold, all find the solace of community.

In what is at one and the same time a coming-of-age novel, a realistic crime novel and a novel of the contemporary Southwest, The Killer Is Dying is above all the story of three men of vastly different age and background, and of the shape their lives take against the unforgiving sunlight and sprawl of America's fifth largest city, Phoenix.

James Sallis is the author of Drive, a hard-boiled crime fiction that has now been made into an award-winning film starring Ryan Gosling:

CRITICAL ACCLAIM

'The Killer is Dying is beautifully written . . . read as an extended prose poem, it's well-nigh perfect'
- Laura Wilson, The Guardian [read the full review]

'Atmospheric . . . Sallis develops an interesting kinship between cop and killer'
- Susannah Meadows, New York Times [read the full review]

'Another brilliantly written, brutally short slice of existential noir'
- Henry Sutton, The Mirror

''Sallis is a wonderful writer, dark, lyrical and compelling''
- Andrew Taylor, The Spectator [read the full review]

'Wonderful writing that stitches a complex picture of America’s south west, with the story of a killer and a cop as part of that tapestry.'
- Crime Fiction Lover [read the full review]

'Unlike those pretenders who play in dark alleys and think they’re tough, James Sallis writes from an authentic noir sensibility, a state of mind that hovers between amoral indifference and profound existential despair'
- Marilyn Stasio, New York Times [read the full review]

'Sallis’s spare, concrete prose achieves the level of poetry'
- Julia Handford, Telegraph [read the full review]

'carefully crafted, restrained and eloquent'
- Jacques Testard, Times Literary Supplement [read the full review]

The American crime writer James Sallis has been earmarked for some mainstream attention this year, courtesy of the Hollywood adaptation of his novel Drive (2005), much applauded at the Cannes Film Festival in May. Coinciding with the release of the film this month comes The Killer is Dying, a sparse, noir tale of a slowly dying hitman.

Set in Phoenix, Arizona, Sallis’s latest novel focuses on three very different characters. Christian, a Vietnam war veteran turned hit man, fighting illness to pull of one last hit; a middle-aged homicide detective, Dale Sayles, whose wife is slowly dying of cancer; and Jimmie Kostof, a teenager abandoned by his parents to a drab life of survival in his suburban home.

Seemingly unconnected, the characters’ lives chaotically intersect. Someone tries to murder Christian’s target – an innocuous accountant – sending him of on a search for the interloper. Sayles and his partner Graves are investigating the attempted killing, which brings them into contact with both the hit man and his rival. Stranger and less effective is the Jimmie connection: as the drama slowly unfolds, it emerges that he dreams the killer’s dreams. Resolutions are implied, the plot propelled by spare prose more suggestive than revelatory. We learn that the three characters have in common the essential human bond of loss. ‘People leave us’, Jimmie tells himself. ‘All our lives are a going-away.’

Death, decay, alienation – Sallis’s minimalist meditations find an echo in the city of Phoenix, an alien place in inhospitable territory. Far removed from the classic crime novels of Raymond Chandler or Chester Himes – whose influence Sallis has written about – The Killer is Dying is less crime-solving than existential musing. While carefully crafted, restrained and eloquent, Sallis’s latest is more hallucinatory than suspenseful, driven by the realization of loss rather than the fulfilment of closure habitual to the genre.

Jacques Testard, Times Literary Supplement

'As unique as it is profound'
- Declan Burke, Irish Times [read the full review]

'James Sallis is without doubt the most underrated novelist currently working in America'
- Catholic Herald [read the full review]

'Tersely hard-boiled, literary, soulful and filled with surprises'
- Woody Haut, Crime Time [read the full review]

''Sallis's multi-layered novel has an otherworldness that transcendsÂ its genre...A fine example of literary crime fiction''
- We Love This Book - Autumn 2011

'A work of staggering pathos'
- Mike Stafford, Bookgeeks [read the full review]

'James Sallis is a superb writer'
- The Times

'Sallis is a fastidious man, intelligent and widely read. There's nothing slapdash or merely strategic about his work '
- London Review of Books

'Sallis writes crime novels that read like literature '
- Los Angeles Times

'Sallis creates vivid images in very few words and his taut, pared‐down prose is distinctive and powerful'
- The Sunday Telegraph

'Through no-nonsense staccato chapters, with minimal action, Sallis does a superb job exploring the workings of his characters' thoughts and motives. '
- Publishers Weekly [read the full review]

'No other writer renders the texture of solitude with more uncanny accuracy or brings more poetic intensity to the everyday.'
- John Repp, Cleveland.com [read the full review]

'Taut and evocative, this beautifully written story is slow to unfold but haunting in its effect'
- Jeff Popple, Sunday Canberra Times [read the full review]

'Sallis is an unsung genius of crime writing'
- Mark Timlin, The Independent On Sunday

'one of the very best writers in the crime fiction genre'
- Barry Forshaw, Crime Time [read the full review]

'A dazzling, haunting work that intertwines the tales of three characters who never actually meet, but who are nevertheless inextricably linked.'
- Big Issue [read the full review]