Sleeping Dogs

Sleeping Dogs by Thomas Perry was originally published in 1992. My paperback copy is 308 pages. The writing is surprisingly good, however, I became rather tired of all the killing by the end of the book and wanted Butcher's Boy, the anti-hero, to get caught. I have one more book by Perry I'll be reading next. So far the mysteries have been nice, mindless summer reading and I can easily whip through a book a day, if I have nothing going on that night. The minute I start to tire of them I'll switch back to my own stack of books TBR.

Synopsis from back cover:

"He came to England to rest. He calls himself Michael Schaeffer, says he's a retired American businessman. He goes to the races, dates a kinky aristocrat, and sleeps with dozens of weapons. Ten years ago it was different. Then, he was the Butcher's Boy, the highly skilled mob hit man who pulled a slaughter job on some double-crossing clients and started a mob war. Ever since, there's been a price on his head.

Now, after a decade, they've found him. The Butcher's Boy escapes back to the States with more reasons to kill. Until the odds turn terrifyingly against him . . . until the Mafia, the cops, the FBI, and the damn Justice Department want his hide . . . until he's locked into a cross-country odyssey of fear and death that could tear his world to pieces . . ."

Quotes:

"On August 14 at three in the afternoon, Michael Schaeffer noticed a small poster on a board inside the front window of a small teahouse. It said THE AMAZING POWERS OF THE INTELLECT in bold letters at the top, and this attracted his attention. He hoped that there were amazing powers in the intellect, although his dealings with others and many years of self-examination had revealed none that he thought much of." pg. 1

"Because lunatics are systematic thinkers. If they have a secret history of the world to put forward, they can't have other lunatics shouting, 'Then how do you account for the pyramids? What about Stonehenge? Easter Island?' They have to include these things." pg 4

"The man who had emerged from the Rolls-Royce looked familiar. Mario couldn't remember his name, but at home they would sure as hell remember. He was the hired specialist who had gone crazy years ago and whacked all those guys." pg. 16

"If they'd had to describe him to a policeman, one might have been perceptive enough to have judged that his coat was a good piece of English tailoring but not new, and that he was no longer in his twenties but wasn't yet wearing the strangely driven look that men acquired on their fiftieth birthdays." pg. 46