The Exterminators: An Assassin Bug Thriller

by Bill Fitzhugh Narrated by Tom Weiner

Overview

All Bob Dillon ever wanted was a truck with a big fiberglass bug on the roof. All he had to do was survive half a dozen assassination attempts, pull a $10 million con on a Bolivian drug lord, and then fall off the face of the earth with his family and his new best friend, Klaus.

Six years later, in The Exterminators, they surface in Oregon where they continue Bob's work creating an all-natural means of pest control. But now, instead of crossbreeding different strains of assassin bugs, they're using advanced gene sequencers to consolidate the perfect insect-killing traits into one deadly bug. There's only one problem: with all of this seriously expensive DNA tampering, they're running low on funds. The venture-capital outfit that wants to invest turns out to be a front for DARPA, the Department of Defense agency charged with research and development of exotic weapons. It seems the US government wants to enlist Bob, Klaus, and the bugs in the war on terror. Oh, and did we mention unlimited funding?

With an offer too good to refuse, they move to Los Angeles and get to work. Things go swimmingly until that Bolivian drug lord discovers he was conned out of his $10 million. Vowing revenge, he offers $20 million to whoever kills Bob and Klaus. Some of the world's best assassins descend on Hollywood, and before you can say “It's an honor just to be nominated,” the weirdness level reaches apocalyptic heights. It's a battle pitting the Far Right against the Far Left with Bob stuck in the middle and subjected to some serious post-9/11 thinking.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Fitzhugh’s second comic thriller featuring bug-killer Bob Dillon (after 1996’s Pest Control) has more twists and turns than a cockroach eluding a slipper. Bob and his sidekick, assassin Klaus Müller, are working in Oregon on developing “a ‘green’ alternative to chemical pest control” in the form of a genetically engineered insect from the assassin bug family. Short of cash, they turn for funding to a murky agency with a venture capitalist front that’s really connected to the Department of Defense, whose representative wants their help “in the war on terror.” Bob and Klaus wind up in Hollywood, where they become targets of a Bolivian drug lord who puts a million price tag on their heads. Along the way, the protagonist’s name, as in singer Bob Dylan, is good for a few yucks. Millennial religious fanatics, the film industry, the environment, both mainstream and right-wing media, all play a part in this delightful romp. (Jan.)

New York Times best-selling author Carl Hiaasen

"Wild and clever fun."

author of Electric Barracuda Tim Dorsey

"An hysterical satire on politics, religion, Hollywood, and insects."

author of The Big Wink Steve Brewer

"A crystal-clear snapshot of the absurd times in which we live."

From the Publisher

“With…characters who make us laugh pretty much whenever they open their mouths, this book is a real winner.”—Booklist

"Millennial religious fanatics, the film industry, the environment, both mainstream and right-wing media, all play a part in this delightful romp."—Publishers Weekly of The Exterminators

"A lighthearted spin on a desperate tale--just like the best country songs." -- Entertainment Weekly (A-) of Fender Benders

"A satisfying murder mystery and spoof of life in the industry, FENDER BENDERS has a delightfully vicious spirit." -- USA Today of Fender Benders

"Finger-pickin’ good!" -- People of Fender Benders

"In FENDER BENDERS Fitzhugh pens a tale worthy of the Grand Ole Opry." -- Pittsburgh Tribune of Fender Benders

"Sharp, sassy, read-in-one-sitting, laugh-out-loud literature." -- Publishers Weekly of Fender Benders

Fitzhugh applies his school-of-Carl-Hiaasen technique to the capital of country music. -- Kirkus Reviews of Fender Benders

Fitzhugh is a strange and deadly amalgam of screenwriter and comic novelist...in league with Carl Hiaasen and Elmore Leonard. -- The New York Times Book Review of Fender Benders

Kirkus Reviews

Those madcap bug-wielding assassins from Pest Control (1996) are back, and this time the stakes are even higher and the humor even lower. Six years after faking their deaths to escape the wrath of Miguel DeJesus Riviera, the drug lord whose brother they had killed, Bob Dillon and Klaus Müller one day hear a too-good-to-be-true offer from Joshua Treadwell, of Blue Sky Capital Partners, LLC, to fund their genetic research into all-natural extermination--that is, superbugs with an insatiable appetite for killing other bugs--by developing a cadre of counterterrorist bugs that are willing to kill people. Apart from its innate looniness, the only downside of Treadwell's offer is that his ability to track down Bob and Klaus means that their cover is blown, which gives them one more reason to relocate from Oregon to L.A. one step ahead of the wave of contract killers the surviving Riviera has loosed on them. Once the exterminators are safely ensconced in La-La Land, there'll be after-Oscar parties, double-crosses by double agents, brushes with other assassins and of course hordes of killer bugs whose victims rapidly spiral into the hundreds. Along the way, Fitzhugh (Radio Activity, 2004, etc.) finds time to skewer such ripe targets as the CIA, network-news broadcasts, Hollywood pitch sessions, talk-radio blowhards and millenialist Christians. Despite the high body count, the knockabout drive-in movie plotting and scattershot satire (think Godzilla with a laugh track) are all in good fun. Don't believe a word of it when you hear once again that the heroes have died.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169661361
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	01/03/2012
Series:	Assassin Bug , #2
Edition description:	Unabridged

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