The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

Hallgrimur Helgason is a writer that I will have to put on my list of authors to look out for.

"The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning" is the first book that I have ever read from this Icelandic writer. I made sure to see who did the translation and it appears that Helgason did his own translation which makes this story about a Croatian hitman who makes the wrong hit even more remarkable to me.

The story's premise is simple enough. Tomislav "Toxic" Boksic is a hitman for the Croatian mob in NYC. He has a girlfriend. He has a job that he is good at. He likes his life well enough.

Then he's given an assignment that goes wrong in that his target is FBI. And that makes him an instant target. As such, he flees by assuming the identity of a man he kills in an airport bathroom and he is off to Iceland where there are no guns or prostitution and a very small population.

Even more worrisome, the identity of the man he has assumed is an evangelical preacher who was on his way to make an appearance on television for a local group of evangelical Icelanders.

But if you think that this is just an action/crime thriller. It isn't. Helgason has a gift for the darkly humorous and compassion in odd places. Toxic isn't a good guy but he isn't a guy you want to give up on. He is a weirdly trustworthy narrator and while it seems clear where he is headed, you can't help but hope that maybe it'll end differently. That his sins will be washed away and he can find peace.

The people he meets in his exile are interesting in their quirks and affectations. Sigrudor (or as Toxic calls him 'Sickreader') is the pastor who picks him up. His daughter Grunhilder (or Gunholder) is rebellious but not obnoxious. In between his present, you meet the people in his past. From his childhood, from the war after Yugoslavia broke up, from the mob. It is several stories that make up this one man's life and it is funny and melancholy and bittersweet.

Again, you know, as a reader, where this is all headed but the journey getting there is dark but with flashes of unexpected light that make it strangely beautiful.

It is reasonable to assume that a guy called "Toxic" is probably not the nicest guy on the planet and you would be right. In fact, Tomislav Boksic, aka Toxic, is a hitman for the mob in New York City. He claims to have killed 120 something people, some of them in the Bosnian war but 60 something of them as a hitman for the mob. He is on the job and kills the man he is assigned to but to come to find out this guy is an FBI agent and things quickly go downhill from there. He is forced into exile and by unforeseen circumstances winds up killing a TV evangelist, who he looks like, in the bathroom at JFK airport and assuming his identity and winds up in Iceland.

Iceland is unlike anywhere he has ever been before. It has endless days and endless nights, is never truly warm, and has an average zero homicide rate. Further he can't buy a handgun in this country which he desperately misses carrying. He has a lot of difficulty pronouncing the names of the Icelandic citizens so he just turns them into American sounding instead, for example, there's Thordur who he calls Torture, and Guomundur is called Goodmoondoor. He describes the Icelandic national face as "round, with a small nose, like a snowball with a peeble in it" (46).

Needless to say Toxic's past catches up to him in Iceland and he must leave Goodmoondoor's house and go on the run. I won't ruin the book for you but I will tell you that the preacher Goodmoondoor and his fellow preacher Torture decide to save Toxic's soul instead of turning him into the police. The book is pretty funny at times and moves very quickly. The problem I had with it was that I could never really identify with the main character or any of the characters for that matter. It was hard to sympathize with them but I did find myself at the end of the book pulling for Toxic.

If you are interested in a story without a plot... except a "Catholic" hardened hit man becoming a "born again" Christian then you might like this book. (The conversion experience is a device used to wipe-the-slate-clean so the reader will empathize and pull for the professional/mass murder.)

If you are interested in language that would educate "Gray's Anatomy of sexual organs" including both scientific and street slang (and the unmentionable word even Hollywood won't use...), then you might like this book. (To be fair, this is a war and crime hardened sex addict's perspective...)

If you are interested in "tragicomic hilarity" that is way less than funny or tragic... with occasional philosophical rants, then you might like this book. (Kind of reminds me of those detective novels where the writer turns a phrase that makes the reader laugh or think... only this one doesn't do either.)

If you are interested in a book that is an equal opportunity offender (especially gay bashing), they you will probably like this book.

Here is the problem... this book attempts to cross cultures. It doesn't work with the jokes. It doesn't make sense from an American religious sense ("Father Friendly" is a Baptist "priest"). [Baptist's don't have "priests."] It doesn't make sense with the plot... bad/evil man running from the law, haunted by religious ghost, conversion experience, explanation of "easelander" culture, "random" bad guy shows up at the end, God shows up to keep him from finishing the killing... In other words, no mystery, no tension, no interest.

At least he dies at the end anyway (most likely)... enjoy.

Too many times good hitman/killer novels go bad and turn into farce when the killer just shoots everything in sight. Hallgrimur Helgason adeptly avoids that trap. The early portions of the book position the killer Toxic with serious credentials in the Croatian mob, pulling off 67 kills and currently residing in NYC. When one of his assignments goes bad and turns out to be a federal agent, he has to quickly leave the country. His ruthlessness is on display as nothing or no one will get in the way of his escape, which finds him unknowingly killing a man of the cloth and then by necessity, assuming the dead pastor's identity and itinerary.

This is where the story deviates from the traditional mob killer story. The suspense and intensity build not from a string of endless bullets, but from a quiet lack of killer. As Toxic settles in Iceland, he makes friends, lies, is discovered, is healed, makes new friends, and lives a normal life of a retiring killer. At every page turn, I was wondering, who will he kill next, and when? Or when will his former employers pop back into the story and decide he's a loose end?

All of that makes it simultaneously violent enough to satisfy fans of the modern gun for hire genre but thoughtful enough to be unique amongst them. I hope we see more (in English please!) from Hallgrimur Helgason.

The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning by Hallgrimur Helgason

I loved this story. I only put the book down when I had to. I am a sucker for gangster stories. The main character in this book points out hypocritical people like me who wouldn't think of crossing on a red light but love watching Tony Soprano. I also enjoy reading about living in cold climate areas and Iceland is a place I don't often get to visit in books or movies. The story is irreverent, funny, disturbing, location driven and maybe the smallest bit political if you'd want to take it that way. Maybe antiestablishment might be a better description.

The main character is currently in the Croatian Mafia. Previously he fought the Serbs in the Croatian war for independence. The entire story is from his POV and he has an internal story for everything. So you spend time with him remembering the war. He is a killer by trade so his tolerance is higher than the readers and there are times when I found myself laughing and liking him and then was shocked in the next moment by something he did or remembered.

I have been reading a lot of Scandinavian authors lately but I never really get used to all the long names and spellings that are out of my comfort zone. The Croatian main character in this book helps the reader with all the Icelandic words by giving them phonetic like substitutes that also partly describe the character. So Gunnhildur becomes Gunholder and so forth. The book is never a chore to read and by the end I was very comfortable with the occasional Croatian, Icelandic, Russian, Serbian, Polish or Lithuanian word.

I loved the way the main character processes his thoughts on women. That mechanism right there is reason enough to read this book.

There is vulgarity, murder, a little sex, organized crime, war, religion and the bible. Then that is all mixed within this tiny peaceful cold nation with very few people. It's quirky and maybe off-putting to some but I loved every page.

At a guess, I would say I'm not in the age range of readers that the publishers of, or author, Hallgrimur Helgason envisaged would read The Hitman's Guide To Housecleaning. I don't think the book was targeted at a middle class, middle aged, middle of the road female (me). It was though an interesting, lol, confronting and sometimes sad journey that I went on with this book.

Hallgrimur Helgason, an award winning Icelandic artist and writer, has had two previous novels (101 Reykjavik, Stormland) filmed. The Hitman's Guide To Housecleaning, has been staged in Europe and is being filmed as well. Helgason wrote the book in English (his other novels were translated from Icelandic to English) which accounts for the book's unusual turn of phrase; either funny with a creative use of English or a little strange. As he was born and lives in Iceland it's probably okay for Helgason to poke fun at the names of Icelandic people. One of the main characters, Sigrudor becomes `Sickreader' which, no matter how many times I read it still made me smile. The author also has fun with the main character, Tomislav Boksic, a Croation hitman's understanding of Icelander's accented English - they say `heresy' he hears `hairy sea'.

Tomislav or Toxic as he becomes known after being employed in the US as a hitman for the Croation Mafia has a problem - he hit the right guy who turned out to be the wrong guy; an undercover employee of the FBI. The FBI, not pleased at losing a team member, put the heat on Toxic's gang and he is supplied with a one way ticket to Zagreb and told to get lost for a while - quite a while. Upset at leaving behind his luscious girlfriend, Munita, Toxic follows the boss's orders and is about to board a Belgrade flight when he spots the FBI at the gates. This calls for drastic action and Toxic exits fast. Hiding in the men's washroom, he kills a bald headed man and steals his clothes and identity. The dead man was headed for Iceland's capital, Reykjavik. Toxic shaves his head and joins the flight queue for Reykjavik.

The discovery that the guy he is impersonating is Reverend David Friendly, from the state of Virginia, does give Toxic pause for thought - he's never killed a holy man before. Met at the Reykjavik airport by two television evangelists, Toxic decides, without luggage (it's circling Belgrade Airport baggage claim) or any visible means of support to accept their offer of board and lodging. The evangelists `Goodmondoor' and `Sickreader' welcome him into their home and he is persuaded to make an appearance on their television show. A success on the show, Toxic looks set for top billing but is unhappy at having to forsake his professional hitman career. Proud of his curriculum vitae - 65 worry free hits (except maybe for his victims) he is annoyed the 66th turned sour. Naked without a gun, any gun will do, he settles down to the life of a gun deprived visiting Christian celebrity.

The plot twists and turns as Toxic's cover is blown and he narrowly escapes a visit from the `white hats', Iceland's police force. Hidden by the evangelists, who look on saving his soul as a challenge worthy of their calling, Toxic is shocked to learn his NY girlfriend has been iced - her severed head is cooling in his New York apartment's refrigerator. This leaves the way open for him to start an affair with Gunhildur (Gun) the daughter of Goodmondoor and Sickreader. Toxic, on his way to being saved, by day, washes dishes and helps out in a church, by night, he canoodles with Gun.

There's plenty of `language' in this book which I would normally find offensive, but as most of the characters are from backgrounds that don't bear thinking about, it does read as natural speech patterns. Throughout the course of the story there are flashbacks to Toxic and his family's roles in the chaotic, savage ethnic cleansing that occurred in the recent Serb/Croat war. These passages are effective and tragic; perhaps the author's intention was to create a satirical anti war novel.

Don't want to spoil the plot points and the suspenseful ending - read The Hitman's Guide To Housecleaning, it might be outside your comfort zone but it's also funny and thought provoking.

I should have really looked closer at the publisher before falling for Amazon's recommendation of the book. The first 70 or so pages live up to the promise that Amazon gave it about being quirky. After that, the book degenerates rapidly. The plot becomes unreal and so far off anythnig approaching reality that I really had a hard time staying with it to the end. It is like watching a bad movie. You keep watching to hope it gets better. But it doesn't. I kept wondering where the plot was going and where it was going to end, but like the rest of the book, even the ending was an absolute disappointment. It is only the first 70 pages that keep me from giving the book a one star review.

I laughed a lot. Although the back page blurb says it's his first novel in English, it's hard to believe.
A few pages with this writer will have you smiling and then giggling. The protagonist is a Croat hitman on the run and stranded in Iceland, guest of a bible thumper and his attractive wanton daughter. But life is spinning out of his control. You will love his butchered icelandic and witty English.

Of the many books I have read, I must say this one is one of the funniest ever. Toxic, aka Father Friendly, aka other names, is ruthless, murderous, slightly off in the head, and funny as any stand-up comic. I loved this book. I learned a lot about Iceland, its people, and scenery. All of it was entertaining. I hope the author writes many more books in English with characters like Toxic, the Icelandic preacher's slightly sociopathic, thrill-seeking daughter, and all the other crazy characters in this story. Everyone is somewhat mentally skewed but still entertaining and refreshingly funny, as is Toxic's descriptions of them. I love the way Toxic mispronounces the Icelandic names with simple English words that when put together sound somewhat Icelandic in nature. Can't wait for more by this author.

I had a lot of great laughs when I read this, form the names, to the dark humor. Watching Toxic trying to adapt to a gun free world is quite funny.
The writer has a great turn of phrase capacity, and is amusing for most of the book. I found myself thinking about the S Plum books.
Con, it gets a little too dark and unfun in the Toxic's flashbacks. This would be a more enjoyable read if some of the darker material had been left out. I found myself dreading the sections, the writer was trying to do/prove something? After 30 plus years a hard core reader, I do find the excessive violence that appears in modern lit to be annyoing.