The Big Hit

by James Neal Harvey

Overview

In Harvey’s first new thriller in more than fifteen years, a starlet’s murder draws an NYPD detective into a cross-country manhunt

Mongo wakes up, brushes his teeth, and prepares to kill a movie star. He needs a wig and a phony press pass, as well as a very special tape recorder that holds two fléchettes, one of which is earmarked for screen siren Catherine Delure. A bit of smooth talk takes Mongo past Delure’s security and into her hotel room, where he completes his assignment with ease. The hit was simple, he thinks. But it is about to go terribly wrong.

Delure appears to have been shot during a robbery, but homicide detective Jeb Barker is not fooled. Tracking the self-assured assassin leads the PI first to Las Vegas, then to California—where blue sky and palm trees cannot distract him from the darkness within the hit man’s heart.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781480485808
Publisher:	Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
Publication date:	07/29/2014
Pages:	434
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

James Neal Harvey spent fifteen years in the advertising business before selling his company and devoting himself to writing. He made his hardcover debut in 1990 with By Reason of Insanity, which introduced NYPD detective Ben Tolliver.

Harvey followed Tolliver through four more novels, including Painted Ladies, Mental Case, and the concluding thriller, Dead Game. In 2011, Harvey published the nonfiction Sharks of the Air, a detailed history of the development of the first jet fighter, and in 2014, he returned to thrillers with The Big Hit, a mystery about an assassin. 

Editorial Reviews

08/11/2014
In this pedestrian cat-and-mouse thriller from Harvey (Dead Game and four other Ben Tolliver mysteries), a sophisticated assassin, known only as Mongo, poses as a journalist to get access to the Manhattan hotel room of mega-movie star Catherine Delure. Mongo uses a weapon concealed in a tape recorder to fatally shoot Delure and her assistant before making his escape. NYPD Det. Jeb Barker, a member of the task force assigned to the red-ball case, rejects the theory that the actress's jewels were the object of the murder, and somehow persuades his supervisor to send him to Hollywood to identify Delure's enemies, without clearing it with the brass. There, he meets up with the fetching Dana Laramie, the star's secretary, with whom he begins a clichéd romance. The mysterious person who ordered the murder wants Mongo to clean up some loose ends, and the cop and the killer end up pursuing each other. Readers should be prepared for lackluster writing and improbable developments. (July)

Publishers Weekly

"Pounding pace . . . [A] chilling and memorable thriller.” —Publishers Weekly on By Reason of Insanity

“A gripping, tautly written thriller.” —Orlando Sentinel on Flesh and Blood

“A grand whopper of a thriller . . . The author works in a pared-down, pulsating style and introduces nicely timed humor.”  —Booklist, starred review

From the Publisher