Eddie's Boy by Thomas Perry

 

They've come again.  Michael Shaeffer and his wife have just hosted a party at her aristocratic home in England.  Michael is an American and never thought he'd end his days married to a woman with a long family heritage and a fortune that put his own in the shade.  He had retired to England when his business had made an exit necessary.  Michael was a paid assassin, working mainly for the Mob.  After he set up a Mob boss who hired him and then didn't pay him but tried to have him killed instead, the United States was too dangerous.  Twice before in his long years in England men have come to kill him.  Now they've come again.

There are four this time but Michael is able to get the jump on them and kills them all.  He disposes of the bodies but he knows he has to go back to the US and take care of the problem.  He sends his wife to stay with friends and is on a plane by morning.  

Michael was orphaned at age three, his parents recent immigrants to the Philadelphia neighborhood.  Michael was headed to social services and a life in the system but the neighbors got together to discuss the situation and Eddie, the local butcher, volunteered to take Michael in and raise him.  That was agreeable to everyone so Michael had a new home.  But Eddie wasn't just any butcher.  He was a hitman and he taught Michael his trade.  Michael made his first kill at fourteen and spent years becoming the best in the business.

Now as he returns to America he learns that the boss he had imprisoned all those years ago is up for parole.  He has to be the one causing Michael's problems. Michael has a lifeline to a federal prosecutor whose life and children he saved years ago so he gets some information from her.  Then he sets out to solve his problems once and for all.

I listened to this novel.  The narrator had a deeper male voice.  He was the perfect unemotional voice to bring to life the story and thoughts of a solitary, driven man.  Michael was logical, learning long ago that emotions were the enemy of the lightning fast actions he needed to take.  This narrator has that calm unemotional voice down perfectly.

This is the fourth in the Butcher Boy series.  I wasn't aware of that when I started this novel, and it didn't make any difference although I will definitely go back and read the first three.  Thomas Perry is also known for his series featuring a woman who helps people disappear.  In both series, his ability to lay out logical sequences of precautions and the planning that is necessary for success is evident.  The reader will know he shouldn't be cheering for Michael but won't be able to help doing so.  This book is recommended for readers of thrillers.