BRUT

The useful part

His one show of affection is toward fellow ex-Marine Benjamin Stephenson, his lover and only friend. He's more like the Gray Man, exulting in spilling blood: "A pâté of teeth, lips and tongue exploded." Yeah, man. " A woman named Gianna urges him on, saying, "I am asking you to transform into the devil," but he's there already.

How it works

• All right, maybe poor Benny, who shows touches of complexity.
• The writing itself is vivid and often playful, for example, "Playing music off his phone, a lava flow of decelerated rap that sounded like it was bubbling through tar," and, "You are not Italian.
• So on the plus side there's a strong plot that moves to a high-powered conclusion.

What to take from it

Robert Beaujolais is a 33-year-old ex-Marine who becomes a well paid contract killer—an arbiter, he calls himself—because "life post-discharge was skull-gouge boring." Committing grisly murder comes to him easily and without emotion, because death is just a way to make a living.

Details worth keeping

Life is only the period between funerals." There are also short, untranslated paragraphs in Italian, which readers will either understand, suss out, or ignore: "Che cazzo ne sai, vecchio caprone?" "Più di te, stronza amareggiata." This is a sharp exchange, and they're not talking about having a spot of tea. On the minus side, there is not a single character to care about. Beauj's soul may as well have been crushed by a steamroll...