Since the Layoffs

February 15, 2003
Like Donald Westlake in " The Ax" (1997), about an insurance executive turned hit man, Levison brings a burning rage to this accomplished debut novel. Ever since Jake Skowran lost his job when the town factory closed, he has been fending off his creditors with increasingly vitriolic rants. His longtime girlfriend has left him, and his unemployment is due to run out. So when Ken Gardocki, a backwater bookie and drug dealer, offers Jake $5,000 to kill Ken's wife, Jake accepts without hesitation. He goes on to kill three more people, including a corporate flack who hassles Jake about wearing a smock at his new minimum-wage job at the Gas 'n' Go. Levison has a wickedly sardonic sense of humor and a real feel for the disconnect between the line peddled in employee manuals and the way things actually play out in the workplace. In addition, the murder scenes are horrific--panic-laden, brutal moments of mayhem. A deep outrage over wrecked lives and towns underpins this ferociously articulate assault on corporate and personal ethics.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2003, American Library Association.)