A Killing for Christ (50th Anniversary Edition)

by Pete Hamill

Overview

A “fast-paced [and] stylishly punchy” thriller about an assassin targeting the pope, by the New York Times-bestselling author of Snow in August (The New York Times).

The man in priest’s garb gets out of the elevator at the top floor, leaving the gate ajar. He pulls out the loaded rifle he had hidden, and steps to the edge of the roof. St. Peter's Square is spread out before him like a great, colorful lake. There are more people than he has ever seen before.

Now the target arrives. The man on top of the building sights down the rifle at the small figure below. His finger is ready on the trigger, ready to gun down His Holiness, the Vicar of Christ...

The first novel by the prize-winning journalist and acclaimed author of A Drinking Life, Tabloid City, and other bestsellers, this tale of danger and espionage is “steeped in noir sensibility....a tense, page-turning thriller that is as pertinent today as it was when it was first published” (Shelf Awareness).

Includes a new introduction by the author

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781617755989
Publisher:	Akashic Books
Publication date:	02/19/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	266
Sales rank:	943,224
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Pete Hamill was born in Brooklyn in 1935 and is, for many, the living embodiment of New York City. In his writing for the New York Daily News, the New York Post, and New York magazine, he has brought the city to life for millions of readers. He is the author of many bestselling books, including the novels Forever and Snow in August, as well the memoir A Drinking Life. He recently moved back to Brooklyn.Keith Szarabajka has appeared in many films, including The Dark Knight, Missing, and A Perfect World, and on such television shows as The Equalizer, Angel, Cold Case, Golden Years, and Profit. Szarabajka has also appeared in several episodes of Selected Shorts for National Public Radio. He won the 2001 Audie Award for Unabridged Fiction for his reading of Tom Robbins' Fierce Invalids Home from Hot Climates and has won several Earphones Awards.

Hometown:

New York, New York, and Cuernavaca, Mexico

Date of Birth:

1935

Place of Birth:

Brooklyn, New York

Education:

Mexico City College, 1956-1957; Pratt Institute

Website:

http://www.petehamill.com

Editorial Reviews

"A Killing for Christ is steeped in noir sensibility....This is a tense, page-turning thriller that is as pertinent today as it was when it was first published."

Shelf Awareness for Readers

"A Killing for Christ has a secret agent out of John le Carré and a spoiled priest-her out of Graham Greene, and Pete Hamill created a novel of suspense that is all his own, and that is why he is a Brooklyn treasure."

Brooklyn Digest

"As a portrait of time and place, A Killing for Christ is perfect...A Killing for Christ is a gem of a literary thriller, alive with the best noir qualities and not at all date. The Akashic 50th anniversary edition should bring a great novel to the attention of a new audience."

Nudge-Book

"Hamill is better known as one of our greatest chroniclers of New York City. In this, his first novel, rereleased on its 50th anniversary, he goes all hard-boiled noir, telling the story of a disaffected American priest and a plot to kill the pope."

Honor Jones's "New & Noteworthy" column New York Times Book Review

"Praise for the original 1968 edition:

"A Killing for Christ is a fast-paced, topical thriller...Hamill’s prose is stylishly punchy...I would guess that Hamill admires Hemingway, Jimmy Breslin, and Mickey Spillane—not always in that order."
—New York Times

"The Helen Macinnes touch...the Hitchcock air."
—Philadelphia Inquirer

"The style and substance of this first novel owes much to hardboiled, gutsy, private-eye fiction and to a general submersion into obscenity and violence."
—Kirkus Reviews"

Praise for the original 1968 edition

"I'm a big fan of Pete Hamill's, and can't think of a finer New York novel than Forever. Somehow, I'd missed his first book, A Killing for Christ, and am grateful to Akashic for having brought out this fiftieth anniversary edition. It's a strong tale well told, with compelling and fully realized characters. Hamill has grown as a writer since 1968—it would be remarkable if he had not—but you can glimpse in this first novel the writer he would become."

Lawrence Block

"Hamill is better known as one of our greatest chroniclers of New York City. In this, his first novel, rereleased on its 50th anniversary, he goes all hard-boiled noir, telling the story of a disaffected American priest and a plot to kill the pope."

The New York Times Book Review - Honor Jones's "New & Noteworthy" column