Overview
Bob Dillon can't get a break. A down-on-his-luck exterminator, all he wants is his own truck with a big fiberglass bug on top — and success with his radical new, environmentally friendly pest-killing technique. So Bob decides to advertise.
Unfortunately, one of his flyers falls into the wrong hands. Marcel, a shady Frenchman, needs an assassin to handle a million-dollar hit, and he figures that Bob Dillon is his man. Through no fault — or participation — of his own, this unwitting pest controller from Queens has become a major player in the dangerous world of contract murder.
And now Bob's running for his life through the wormiest sections of the Big Apple — one step ahead of a Bolivian executioner, a homicidal transvestite dwarf, meatheaded CIA agents, cabbies packing serious heat ... and the world's number-one hit man, who might just turn out to be the best friend Bob's got.
Synopsis
An incredibly funny comic thriller involving the world's deadliest assassins!
People
Stingingly Funny.
Editorials
Time Out New York
"...this is one roach motel you’ll gladly check into."Austin American-Statesman
"Pest Control is uber-contemporary, a hilarious, running-in-circles blend of droll farce and warped humor."National Public Radio - All Things Considered
“PEST CONTROL is an eccentrically comic take on the high-tech thriller...[it is a] strange and funny...curiously appealing little novel of intrigue”San Antonio Express-News
"A very funny and interesting book...give it to someone who needs a good laugh."Poeple
"Stingingly Funny."Elle
"[Pest Control is]...hilarious [and] wonderful...Fitzhugh is a funny man and Pest Control is a funny book."Washington Post
"...a clever and satisfying debut...offbeat, engaging, and very funny reading, it is wholly successful."Dallas Morning News
"This debut novel is...goofy but great fun."All Things Considered
"PEST CONTROL is an eccentrically comic take on the high-tech thriller...[it is a] strange and funny...curiously appealing little novel of intrigue"People
Stingingly Funny.National Public Radio
An eccentrically comic take on the high-tech thriller...strange and funny.Publishers Weekly
This debut novel, published in Britain in 1994, hinges on a delightfully buggy idea that takes full comic advantage of New York City. Bob Dillon, an unemployed pest control expert, faxes a resume in response to a carefully coded advertisement for a hired killer-"Gone private with lethal new concept!" reads Bob's exuberant pitch. Voila! He's mistaken for a top assassin. When assorted personages start dying and their demises are laid at Bob's door, the CIA gets involved. A price is put on Bob's head, luring every top-rated killer-for-hire in the world to the Big Apple, which is depicted as infinitely more dangerous than merely cold-blooded assassins. In a prime example of the book's major flaw, however, this humorous concept is set up long before it's knocked down and is then discarded far too quickly for a gruesome, bug-infested finale. Fitzhugh can't settle on a consistent attitude to his over-the-top material. Arch quotations from rock songs rub up against Bob's marital problems and the pure Hollywood fantasy of the world's top assassin, who, while tracking Bob, yearns only for a normal, middle-class family life. The uncertain pacing and tone render this comic thriller a bumpy read, but its nifty premise makes it just right for a high-concept film, which is no doubt why movie rights have been sold to Warner Brothers' Spring Creek Productions for $1.25 million. Mar.Library Journal
Fired from his job with a pest control company in Queens, New York, Bob Dillon starts his own business using his environmentally friendly technique: hybrid killer insects that eat cockroaches. Meanwhile, Marcel, a broker who contracts for assassins, is looking for a reliable newcomer to complete a million-dollar hit. He advertises and Bob responds, neither understanding the nature of the other's "exterminating" business. Very shortly thereafter, ten of the most dangerous hitpersons in the world descend on Queens, which is pretty dangerous itself and more than up to the challenge. Broadly satiric, extremely funny, and tailor-made for film rights have already been sold to Warner Brothers, this is not exactly demanding reading, but it is fun and likely to be popular. A reasonable purchase for most public libraries.-Edwin B. Burgess, U.S. Army Combined Research Lib., Fort Leavenworth, Va.Kirkus Reviews
A sweetly comic thriller that finally answers the age-old question: What if a sad-sack New York exterminator got his antennae crossed with the professionals who wipe out Homo sapiens?
At his wit's (and checkbook's) end after walking off his job killing bugs with lethal cocktails, Bob Dillon schemes at his own unique approach to extermination: breeding predatory strains of insects who'll feast on termites and roaches without developing chemical-resistant new strains of pests or loading the planet with hazardous toxins. It's a plan with all the makings of an American success story, but it spins out of control when Bob's ad falls into the hands of a middleman who brokers assassinations and thinks Bob's sobriquet of "the Exterminator" is a veiled reference to his status as a hit man. Getting a faint whiff of the trouble in his future, Bob begs off the lucrative job he's offered. But when the victim is accidentally killed anyway, the middleman, assuming Bob's managed the job with unusual finesse, duly sends him his fee. So far, everything's as innocuous as the endless stream of double-entendres about extermination—except that (1) the UPS package with all that lovely money gets held up en route to Bob; (2) his wife and daughter, impatient with his uncompromisingly idealistic approach to pest control, walk out on him; and (3) the brother and murderer of a Bolivian druglord who wants to cover up his own crime screams that it was the work of the Exterminator and offers a $10 million bounty to whoever kills Bob—attracting all the top exterminators in the field. There's the subtle Chinese knife expert, the glamorous Frenchwoman, the parvenu Cowboy, the transvestite dwarf, and the melancholy, suicidal top man, whose unlikely friendship with his prospective target is the high point of this generally predictable tale.
A first novel that's not sharply enough written to offer serious competition to Florida farceurs Hiaasen and Shames, but consistently sunny and good-humored.