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Rating: 
Summary: The hype is good, believe the hype
Review: I beg to differ with the other reviewers. The book is clinical, that part is true, but I definitely wouldn't call it cold, or monotonous for that matter. More like minimalist.The novel is intelligent, poignant and, in it's own way, moving. What Rabe does is to acknowledge the hard-boiled cliches that are expected of him, strip most of them away, as they would have otherwise stood in the way of him telling the story, and then use what is left of the gangster novel/roman noir vernacular to communicate directly with the reader in the clearest and most succint way imaginable. That way lies transcendence.
Rating: 
Summary: not very fun to read
Review: Imagine a crime book without any compelling characters, snappy dialogue, or surprising plot twists and you should get a pretty good picture of 'Kill the Boss'. Dry, detached, and plodding, this 125-page novel drags on in a monotonous tone that really got on my nerves. I ended up forcing myself to finish the book.
Rating:
Summary: not very fun to read
Review: Imagine a crime book without any compelling characters, snappy dialogue, or surprising plot twists and you should get a pretty good picture of 'Kill the Boss'. Dry, detached, and plodding, this 125-page novel drags on in a monotonous tone that really got on my nerves. I ended up forcing myself to finish the book.
Rating: 
Summary: A Disappointment
Review: This crime novel has quite a reputation among hardboiled aficianados, but I'm not sure I see why. We follow Fell, a gambling boss, as he checks himself out of a mental sanitarium, regains the power he was in danger of losing, and then goes over the top into manic psychosis. Kill is well-written and believable, but it's not very entertaining, or even very interesting. Part of the problem, I think, is the cold, clinical tone -- it feels more like a psychiatric case study than a novel. The other part of the problem is that there's no one to root for in the book: we never care about Fell, so ultimately we don't care what happens to him. That could have been dealt with if the book was more racy/lurid -- one would read on just to have one's sensibilities shocked -- but this is so quiet, it only manages to inspire indifference. Don't bother hunting this one down, and don't believe the hype.
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