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Rating: 
Summary: Throw Yourself a Bone and Read This Remarkable Book
Review: "Seventeen-year-old boys die in car crashes, they die of meningitis, rare forms of cancer, suicide. Mostly, they don't die at all. They pass through the age, shedding awkwardness and anger and self-loathing on the way." But young Ben Hatto was about to die all right, the victim of a professional hit man's bullet to the forehead. And in that he was also about to join his mother and father lying in pools of still-warm blood one floor below in the kitchen and family room (respectively) of their comfortable suburban London home.
The lone remaining member of the Hatto clan, twenty-year-old Ella, is vacationing with her boyfriend in Italy. Blissfully unaware of the gruesome fate that has befallen her family, Ella is disturbed when she notices a nondescript middle-aged man watching her as she sits in a café. Before she is able to share her concern with her partner, Chris, the stranger rises from his seat and, gun in hand, moves toward her. Shots ring out in the calm of an Italian evening. Two younger men, apparently bent on doing harm to Ella, lie dead on the sidewalk. Before Ella even realizes what has happened, she and Chris have been spirited away by their shadowy guardian, a dangerous and enigmatic figure who introduces himself simply as "Lucas." Lucas, ex-assassin turned bodyguard, has been sent by Ella's father to keep watch surreptitiously on the youths as they travel. When Lucas learns what has happened to his employer he breaks the news to his charges. He fulfills his professional obligation by delivering Ella and Chris safely to the consulate in Switzerland.
So begins Kevin Wignall's powerful and evocative new novel, FOR THE DOGS. It may seem hard to believe that Wignall, author of the stunning PEOPLE DIE (2002), could manage to equal let alone surpass that debut performance, but surpass it he has. FOR THE DOGS is a book that will shock, amaze, confuse and disorient you. In prose that runs the gamut from the clinically terse to the elegiac, the author tells the story of two individuals - one, Ella, who becomes consumed with revenge and another, Lucas, who wants nothing more or less than redemption, genuine human contact and a chance to meet the daughter he has never even seen.
With intriguing, multi-dimensional characters and dialogue that is hardboiled enough to shatter your fillings yet touching enough to make you cry, FOR THE DOGS is a novel that you won't soon forget. With it, Wignall has cemented his reputation for writing literary noir of the highest caliber. Only a very few people out there today write crime novels that are this moving, this emotionally complex and which pack this kind of visceral wallop. Contrary to what you might be thinking, this isn't a "must read" title. All trite hyperbole aside, the truth is it's actually a "read it all costs" kind of book [...]
Rating: 
Summary: VIOLENT PACIFIST HITMAN SEEKS THE QUIET LIFE
Review: 20 year old English major Ella Hatto is on vacation in Italy with her boyfriend, Chris, when some gunmen attempt to kill her for no reason that she can fathom. Lucky for her that her dad had assigned a bodyguard, an ex-hitman named Lucas who came out of retirement as a favor, to shade her and protect Ella as necessary without her knowledge. Unknown to Ella, assassins have taken out her family back at home, and she just might be next. Ella can't figure it out, until Lucas informs her that their middle class lifestyle is just a ruse and that her dad has concealed that all these years he was a millionaire, and that he had come by this money through shady dealings. Could these executions be tied into some grudge from his past? Ella will have to stay alive to find out the answers, and death is always a possibility.
I have a lot of complaints about this novel. First of all, it has no surprises in it. You know pretty much where it's going before it gets there. The person behind the killings becomes apparent pretty early on, so why waste a hundred pages on it? Another thing is the characters. The sympathetic hitman who tries to get out of a business he despises has just been done so many times. Also, for a hitman, Lucas seems a little too flashy, assaulting college students and sticking guns in their face. That's really not the way to blend into the background. The attempt to make him a literary man, like having him remember his ex-girlfriend and thinking about Proust falls short too. Ella's slow descent into the dark side reeks of cheap tragedy. Plot-wise, the novel is very thin. It would probably make a great movie because it lacks any intelligence and is completely composed of stock characters. A very disappointing work.
Rating:
Summary: Revenge is a deadly proposition
Review: A hitman enters the Hatto household and ruthlessly kills everyone within. It begins a ripple effect that will be felt half way across the world.Ella Hatto relaxes in Italy with her boyfriend. But when she sees a stranger she's sure she's seen before, she's suddenly on guard. When this man crosses the street towards, her gun in hand, she's terrified. Shots are fired, but at two men down the street. To Ella the stranger says simply, "Come with me." And Ella's life changes forever. Lucas is hitman out of retirement whose sole job is to get Ella safely out of Italy and into the confines of the British consulate. But something about her strikes a cord in him. He's reminded of a past he tried hard to forget, including a daughter he's never met. A daughter he's decided he's ready to meet. Ella's life becomes a downward spiral of sadness and rage. Admonished by friends and family to get over it, she's left isolated and sick with grief. She believes there's one cure. Revenge. Lucas agrees to help her, hoping that the death of the man that killed her family will bring her peace. A peace he seeks for himself. There is no way he can know that helping her will unleash events that will lead one of them to redemption and the other to death. For the Dogs establishes Wignall as a modern noir writer with roots deeply immersed in the classics. His allusions to the Nibelungenlied (translated by A.T. Hatto) confirm the depths behind the plot. This in no way translates to a dry epic with a sluggish pace. There is plenty of action and his characters operate under constant threat. It is an in depth exploration of death and isolation propelled by the twin conduit of revenge and redemption. The ending will leave you breathless.
Rating:
Summary: Revenge is a deadly proposition
Review: A hitman enters the Hatto household and ruthlessly kills everyone within. It begins a ripple effect that will be felt half way across the world. Ella Hatto relaxes in Italy with her boyfriend. But when she sees a stranger she's sure she's seen before, she's suddenly on guard. When this man crosses the street towards, her gun in hand, she's terrified. Shots are fired, but at two men down the street. To Ella the stranger says simply, "Come with me." And Ella's life changes forever. Lucas is hitman out of retirement whose sole job is to get Ella safely out of Italy and into the confines of the British consulate. But something about her strikes a cord in him. He's reminded of a past he tried hard to forget, including a daughter he's never met. A daughter he's decided he's ready to meet. Ella's life becomes a downward spiral of sadness and rage. Admonished by friends and family to get over it, she's left isolated and sick with grief. She believes there's one cure. Revenge. Lucas agrees to help her, hoping that the death of the man that killed her family will bring her peace. A peace he seeks for himself. There is no way he can know that helping her will unleash events that will lead one of them to redemption and the other to death. For the Dogs establishes Wignall as a modern noir writer with roots deeply immersed in the classics. His allusions to the Nibelungenlied (translated by A.T. Hatto) confirm the depths behind the plot. This in no way translates to a dry epic with a sluggish pace. There is plenty of action and his characters operate under constant threat. It is an in depth exploration of death and isolation propelled by the twin conduit of revenge and redemption. The ending will leave you breathless.
Rating:
Summary: Definitely no dog
Review: Ella Hatto is a student from a nice, comfortable family, on holiday in Italy with her boyfriend Chris. They are sitting outside a pavement cafe laughing and joking, relaxed and happy, watching the world go by. Ella should take that moment and bottle it, because her world is about to take a violent turn. She doesn't know it, but her mother, father and brother have been murdered at their quiet home in England; she doesn't know that she's become a multimillionaire; she doesn't know that she's in danger; she doesn't know that two men are walking towards her to kill her. She also doesn't know that semi-retired hitman, Lucas, who is sitting in a cafe on the other side of the road, and who has been watching her for a few days, is about to cross the street and save her life. Ella finds all this out pretty quickly, and her life will never be the same again.
Ella and Chris are spirited off to safety by Lucas and the time they spend in each others' company changes them. Lucas is a thoughtful hitman -- he's reading The Nibelungenlied, a German epic poem of fate, tragedy and retribution. Ella is reading Jane Austen's Persuasion -- a novel of romance, redemption and reconciliation.
FOR THE DOGS encompasses all those themes -- but with more bullets. Lucas and Ella swap books, and they touch each others' lives. Lucas' cool, professional facade slips as he sees things in Ella that he is missing in his own solitary life, and he helps her try to come to terms with the death of her family. Ella sees in Lucas a way of getting her revenge on the people who have killed the family she loves. FOR THE DOGS is the story of two people whose lives are changed dramatically because of their encounter. It's a simple plot, a fast and thrilling read, a short book which says a lot. Kevin Wignall doesn't waste words or bullets -- each finds their target in a brutal and unsentimental manner.
Rating:
Summary: exciting and heartbreaking thriller
Review: One night a gunman enters the Hatto house and kills the father, mother and son. It has all the earmarks of a professional hit. Their teenage daughter Ella is in Italy with her boyfriend when two men aim guns aim at her. Out of nowhere before they can murder her, a third gunman kills them. Lucas tells them that Ella's father hired him to watch over them in their travels. He informs Ella that her family is dead; she does not understand why someone would order professional hits on an ordinary middle class family. Lucas tells her that her father once operated on the wrong side of the law, selling drugs and armaments as well as laundering money. When she returns to England, Ella gives the police time to find her family's killer, but they fail. Ella is determined to take the law into her own hands. She hires Lucas to find out who destroyed her family and then she will deal with them personally. There is a lot of action in FOR THE DOGS but the heart of this book lies with the two main characters Ella and Lucas. She becomes more like the man Lucas once was, a cold, remote loner intent on personally make the people who destroyed her life pay while Lucas is moving in the opposite direction. After his business with Ella is finished, he wants to connect with his daughter and reconnect with the only woman he ever loved. Kevin Wignall's prose is stark yet eloquent as his latest thriller is exciting and heartbreaking. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: exciting and heartbreaking thriller
Review: One night a gunman enters the Hatto house and kills the father, mother and son. It has all the earmarks of a professional hit. Their teenage daughter Ella is in Italy with her boyfriend when two men aim guns aim at her. Out of nowhere before they can murder her, a third gunman kills them. Lucas tells them that Ella's father hired him to watch over them in their travels. He informs Ella that her family is dead; she does not understand why someone would order professional hits on an ordinary middle class family. Lucas tells her that her father once operated on the wrong side of the law, selling drugs and armaments as well as laundering money. When she returns to England, Ella gives the police time to find her family's killer, but they fail. Ella is determined to take the law into her own hands. She hires Lucas to find out who destroyed her family and then she will deal with them personally. There is a lot of action in FOR THE DOGS but the heart of this book lies with the two main characters Ella and Lucas. She becomes more like the man Lucas once was, a cold, remote loner intent on personally make the people who destroyed her life pay while Lucas is moving in the opposite direction. After his business with Ella is finished, he wants to connect with his daughter and reconnect with the only woman he ever loved. Kevin Wignall's prose is stark yet eloquent as his latest thriller is exciting and heartbreaking. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Top Notch Psychological Thriller
Review: Twenty year-old Ella Hatto and her boyfriend Chris are sipping their drinks and people watching in a sidewalk cafe, enjoying the last days of their vacation in Italy. Ella is distracted by the familiar face of an innocuous looking man, sitting a few tables away. She is sure she recognizes him from their stops in both Rome and Florence. Now in Montecatini, not exactly a booming tourist center, the young couple sees the stranger again. Could this be a coincidence? Suddenly the man becomes agitated, stands, stares directly at Ella, reaches under his jacket and pulls out a gun. Ella is paralyzed with fear as the gunman walks directly toward her, and turns to face the street, shielding her from passersby. She hears gunshots. Two men in the crowd fall to the pavement and a third is about to go down. While a fast-forming crowd mills around the bodies, the stranger grabs Ella's arm and orders the couple to follow him. He threatens to kill them if they don't obey. As the three drive away from the crime scene, the stranger introduces himself. "Probably an attempted kidnap," he says. "I'm Lucas. Mark Hatto, (Ella's father), asked me to watch Ella in case of something like this." Life, as the bright, innocent Ella knows it, goes downhill from this moment. Attempting to evade further "problems" until arrangements can be made to fly Ella and Chris home, they arrive in Milan where they learn horrific news concerning the Hatto family - news which will forever change Ella's life and irrevocably alter the very core of her being.
"For The Dogs" starts off with a Bang, (literally), and the momentum just doesn't slow down, not even on the last page. From the powerful, action-packed opening, the reader is hooked by this taut psychological, suspense thriller. Author Kevin Wignall's narrative moves along at a brisk pace toward climatic events that will leave you spellbound...and chilled. My favorite scenes are between Lucas and Ella. Stephen Lucas is one of the most romantic, endearing, cold-blooded contract killers I have met in fiction. He is quite the literary maven, and his love of books is a trait he shares with Ella. Lucas is reading "The Nibelungenlied" when they meet; Ella is into Jane Austen's "Persuasion." The author did not choose these book at random. "For The Dogs" has something of both the German epic and the English novel in its storyline. The unlikely pair of Lucas and Ella, solitary hit-man and extroverted college girl, form an intense, unusual bond based on their own individual needs and fantasies. She gets a glimpse of his world and wants in. He is trying to get out. He seeks redemption. She is driven by an obsessive need for justice and revenge.
The book's secondary characters are interesting and quirky, but this story really belongs to Ella and Lucas. The author develops their characters beautifully, and explores their deep and dark sides, as well as classically romantic elements.
This is a gritty novel about fate, tragic loss and retribution. It is also about reconciliation, renewal and forgiveness. Wignall succeeds in revealing the consequences of removing the human face from violence and death. "For The Dogs" is a terrific read anyway you look at it. Highly recommended!
JANA
Rating: 
Summary: Not his best but still recommended.
Review: You really have to feel for Kevin Wignall. Had this novel been written by anyone else I'd doubtless be using up my repertoire of superlatives to describe it. As it is though, this book is written by Kevin Wignall. He of People Die fame. And therein lies the problem. That sterling debut is what his work will continue to be compared to. And like Among The Dead, For The Dogs is a solid novel which while thoroughly entertaining ultimately falls just short. It just can't compete with the previously mentioned monkey on Kevin's back. The only real problem with this book, which mirrors the same problem Among The Dead had, is that it's central character is frankly rather dull. The beating heart of For The Dogs is retired hitman Lucas, whos soul searching and contemplation is for the most part far more interesting than Ella Hatto's quandry. Hers being a more straightforward desire for revenge. When Lucas is involved the novel soars, reaching the heights of the aforementioned People Die. The fact that Lucas strikes numerous comparisons with JJ would explain the coincidence. A standalone novel featuring Lucas would most certainly be a prospect worth waiting for. As it is For The Dogs is certainly an improvement on Among The Dead but a return to People Die form remains frustratingly just out of reach. Maybe next time. My fingers are crossed.
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