Hit Parade

It is a truism of noir fiction that the bad guys are often more fun than the good. This certainly holds true for Keller. Keller is the type of reserved, good-natured, nondescript fellow you might find yourself sitting next to during a business flight to Detroit. He'll tell you about his stamp collection, but will not talk much about his business because his business is murdering people for a fee. But that doesn't mean you wouldn't want to spend some time with Keller, despite his line of work. He is an intelligent, ordinary guy who just happens to be capable of extraordinary, often instantaneous, violence. It's his job. He is careful, though, and tries not to kill innocent bystanders. But is anybody really innocent, he wonders at one point. As for bystanders, sometimes they cannot be avoided. The military has a name for bystander deaths: collateral damage. So too in crime.