The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

Written by Hallgrimur Helgason

Narrated by Luke Daniels

With some 66 hits under his belt, Tomislav Bokšić, or Toxic, has a flawless record as hitman for the Croatian mafia in New York. That is, until he kills the wrong guy and is forced to flee the States, leaving behind the life he knows and loves. Suddenly, he finds himself on a plane hurtling toward Reykjavik, Iceland, borrowing the identity of an American televangelist named Father Friendly. With no means of escape from this island devoid of gun shops and contract killing, tragicomic hilarity ensues as he is forced to come to terms with his bloody past and reevaluate his future.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Mar 6, 2012
• ISBN: 9781455878628

Hallgrimur Helgason

Hallgrimur Helgason was born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1959. He started out as an artist, showing his work in several galleries of both New York and Paris, where he lived in the late eighties and early nineties. He made his debut as a novelist in 1990 and gained international attention with his third novel, 101 Reykjavik (“Imagine if Henry Miller had written Tropic of Cancer on crack instead of wine.” —Tim Sandlin), which was made into a film starring Victoria Abril. In 2001 Helgason received the Icelandic Literary Prize for The Author of Iceland. He has twice been nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize, with 101 Reykjavik in 1999, and Stormland in 2007. A film based on the latter was released in early 2011. The Hitman’s Guide to Housecleaning is his only novel written in English. It was published in Iceland in 2008, in the author’s own translation, and became a bestseller in Germany in 2010. A father of three, Hallgrimur divides his time between Reykjavik and Hrísey Island.

Reviews for The Hitman's Guide to Housecleaning

[col2910_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Synopsis/blurb.........

With some 66 hits under his belt, Tomislav Bokšić, or Toxic, has a flawless record as hitman for the Croatian mafia in New York. That is, until he kills the wrong guy and is forced to flee the States, leaving behind the life he knows and loves. Suddenly, he finds himself on a plane hurtling toward Reykjavik, Iceland, borrowing the identity of an American televangelist named Father Friendly. With no means of escape from this island devoid of gun shops and contract killing, tragicomic hilarity ensues as he is forced to come to terms with his bloody past and reevaluate his future.

About the Author

Hallgrimur Helgason was born in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1959. He started out as an artist, showing his work in several galleries of both New York and Paris, where he lived in the late eighties and early nineties. He made his debut as a novelist in 1990 and gained international attention with his third novel, 101 Reykjavik (“Imagine if Henry Miller had written Tropic of Cancer on crack instead of wine.”-Tim Sandlin), which was made into a film starring Victoria Abril. In 2001 Helgason received the Icelandic Literary Prize for The Author of Iceland. He has twice been nominated for the Nordic Council Literature Prize, with 101 Reykjavik in 1999, and Stormland in 2007. A film based on the latter was released in early 2011. The Hitman’s Guide to Housecleaning is his only novel written in English. It was published in Iceland in 2008, in the author’s own translation, and became a bestseller in Germany in 2010. A father of three, Hallgrimur divides his time between Reykjavik and Hrísey Island.
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My take......

I was interested in completing my personal Scandinavian reading challenge, by trying something a bit different from the mainstream fare on offer. This was recommended to me by Amazon, so I thought why not?

I could say that the best thing about this book was the title or the cover, but that would be unnecessarily harsh. Whilst the book was okay, insofar as I didn’t want to stick pins in my eyes whilst reading it, it wasn’t the best thing I have ever read. I would be loathe to recommend it to others.

Decent premise.... a hit goes wrong, the hitman flees, kills a priest and assumes his identity. After landing on Iceland he encounters fellow holy rollers, who initially welcome him, then after his identity is uncovered, try to help him repent and embrace God and move on with his life.

His old comrades come calling eventually. A bit of love action, a bit of reminiscing about the old days of the Bosnian conflict, where our hitman discovered his prowess for killing, a bit of Icelandic life – boy does he find it dull.

Interesting up to a point, but it just never really took off for me at all. I had a few chuckles along the way, but truth be told, I won’t be rushing to read more by this author.

3 from 5


Bought on Amazon UK for kindle last month.

[Michael In SC · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

A very enjoyable novel that has about everything you could want in it. It has humor, action, a love story and tragedy. You also come away with a feeling of and appreciation for a country and people that we seldom hear much about.

[pmcnamee67 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This novel was a great surprise. Touches of Joseph Heller with deft layering of black humor and drama.

[thorold_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is a variant of a classic formula very popular in Hollywood: the bad guy on the run arrives in a small, peaceful community, and, supported by the Love of a Good Woman and the good advice of wise Father and Mother figures, builds a new life for himself as an honest citizen. But he still has one last, decisive confrontation with the ghosts of his past to deal with before the film ends. Hallgrímur is clearly interested in this idea mainly by the scope it gives him for looking at Iceland through the eyes of someone as incongruous as possible to Icelandic society, the New York-based Croatian Mafia hitman Tomislav Boksic, alias Toxic, formed by the unspeakable atrocities he took part in as a youngster during the Balkan wars and proud of his professional, detached and efficient approach to murder. He's on the run from the Feds after his 67th hit went wrong, and has somehow ended up in Reykjavik assuming the identity of a televangelist from Virginia. Needless to say, Hallgrímur — who wrote the book in English first, then translated it into Icelandic — has endless fun letting Tomislav narrate in exaggerated, pastiche Raymond Chandler noir language, in the most impeccably bad taste. In the audiobook, the corny cod-Balkan accent Luke Daniels uses for Tomislav feels exactly right, and enhances the effect. Inevitably, Tomislav also has his own Balkan slant on Hlynur Björn's most tasteless running joke (cf. [101 Reykjavik]) — he gives every woman he sees a score based on the number of nights it would take before he started dreaming about her, if he were stuck in an army camp where she was the only woman. Tomislav seems so extremely divorced from any kind of moral universe we could identify with that at first it's like looking at Iceland through the eyes of a Martian, but of course Hallgrímur gradually humanises him as we go on through the story, trying to get us to the point where we start asking ourselves whether we would have turned out any differently from him if we'd been plunged into the middle of a civil war in our teens. Perhaps fortunately, he doesn't quite take us along with him that far, but Tomislav does turn out to be a long way from being the cardboard cutout he seems in the opening pages of the book. The other characters also quietly subvert the stereotypes the plot seems to be asking for: Tomislav's ice-princess/anima, Gunnhildur, has all sorts of important character flaws, including the inability to keep her apartment tidy that gives Hallgrímur the hook for his title; the older generation of Icelandic Evangelicals who offer Tomislav salvation all turn out to be very damaged people themselves, but not necessarily the worse for that.And, what's more, the book contains at least two important life-lessons for anyone intending to visit Iceland: (i) don't even think of keeping your shoes on indoors, unless they cost more than 200 dollars; and (ii) if the doorbell rings during Eurovision you probably shouldn't answer it.

[olivermagnus · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I was intrigued by the title of this book and usually enjoy Nordic and European mysteries. The plot of The Hitman's Guide to Housekeeping looked pretty interesting. Tomislav Boksae, or Toxic as he calls himself, is a professional hitman from Croatia. His latest kill brings the entire weight of the world on his head when his victim turns out to be an FBI agent. Soon the feds get a little too close so to save himself, Toxic kills another man and takes on his identity.

It's not until his plane lands in Iceland that Toxic realizes he's now impersonating an American TV preacher, Father Friendly. Iceland is unlike anywhere he has ever been before. The days and nights are endless and it has a zero homicide rate. He will find himself a fish out of water in a country with no army, no guns, barely any police where he must confront his own need for redemption.

Helgason apparently wrote the book in English. His other novels were translated from Icelandic to English which may account for the book's unusual turn of phrase now and again. I thought this would be more of a Donald Westlake kind of humorous novel and that's probably why I didn't enjoy it much. It's very crude and I think at least 75% of the population would be offended by some of the actions taken by the main character.

On the positive side, the author's take on Icelandic names was hilarious. That's not a reason to read the book in my opinion.

[wassilissa · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Immer wieder stelle ich fest, dass ich den Humor- je weiter nach Norden ich in Europa komme- immer weniger verstehe. Und mit dem Autor dieses Buches hatte ich schon bei "101 Reykjavík" meine Schwierigkeiten.Dennoch - wenn man sich an der humoristischen Verharmlosung von schlimmsten Schicksalen (Völkermord in Ex-Jugoslawien, terroristischen Anschlägen des leuchtenden Pfads ...) nicht stört, ist er Anfang recht witzig. Der aus Kroatien stammende Auftragskiller Tomislav muss die USA verlassen, da er aus Versehen einen FBI-Spitzel umgelegt hat. Am Flughafen tötet er einen Mann und übernimmt dessen Reisedokumente: Es handelt sich um Father Friendy, eine ultrakonservativen amerikanischen Fernsehprediger auf dem Weg nach Island. Kurz entschlossen übernimmt Tomislav also diese Reise und, um den Mord nicht sofort aufkommen zu lassen, auch Friendlys Identität inklusive Auftritt im Fernsehen. Das Zusammentreffen dieser Welten hat etwas gewollt Skurilles, gelingt aber durchaus. Es gelingt auch in Grundzügen, in die Geschichte Tiefgang hineinzubekommen, indem die Vergangenheit Tomislavs, der Krieg zwischen Serbien und Kroatien, seine allerschlimmsten Momente, dargestellt werden.Langatmig wirds ungefähr ab da, wo Tomislav in die Familie des Pfarrers, der ihn in Island aufgenommen hat, zurückkehrt und bürgerlich wird. Und das Ende, an dem plötzlich auch noch die Freundin auftaucht, bzw. schon länger da war, ist viel zu knapp und wirr.Insgesamt ist das Buch nicht schlecht- es ist verschroben, es soll wohl aufgrund der Leichendichte ein wenig wie Quentin Tarantino (der hin und wieder angesprochen wird) in Buchform wirken.

[xirxe · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Toxic, bisher erfolgreicher kroatischer Auftragskiller aus New York, erwischt bei seinem letzten Job einen FBI-Agenten. Da nun der Teufel los ist, flieht er auf dem schnellsten Weg und landet als amerikanischer Fernsehprediger in Island. Ehe er es sich versieht, steckt er mittendrin in seiner Rolle als Geistlicher und becirct nicht nur isländische Gläubige…
Schräg, schräger, am schrägsten ;-). Dass bei einem solchen Titel einen kein ‚normaler‘ Krimi erwartet, leuchtet ein. Aber es ist auch kein Unnormaler sondern gar keiner, vielmehr eher die Beschreibung einer Läuterung eines immens großen Sünders. Was sich nun vielleicht fade und öde anhören mag, wird jedoch bei einem Autor wie Helgason zu einem skurrilen wie auch witzigen Leseerlebnis.
Toxic, der vor seiner Laufbahn als Killer Soldat in Kroatien war, ist der Icherzähler mit einem äußerst lockeren wie auch vulgären Tonfall. Er beschreibt Island, das ihm zuvor völlig unbekannt war, aus der Sicht eines Kämpfers (‚Was ist mit diesen Isländern los? Keine Armee. Keine Pistolen. Kein Nix.‘) wie auch eines Großstadtmenschen (‚Der Dom ist so groß wie eine Hundehütte Gottes.‘) und erzählt nebenbei noch aus seinen früheren Leben. Wie ihm der Eurovision Song Contest das Leben rettete, wie er aus Versehen seinen Vater erschoss, wie er seine Morde vorbereitete (‚‘Das Opfer ist König‘ ist mein Motto.‘), wie er den Krieg erlebte (‚In unserer Einheit haben wir fünf Leben verloren, sechs Beine, drei Arme und ein paar Finger.‘). Es sind schreckliche Dinge über die er berichtet, aber dies macht er mit einer solch scheinbaren Selbstverständlichkeit und Direktheit in einer derart ungewohnten Sprache, dass man immer wieder lachen muss.
Trotz der vielen Geschichten aus der Vergangenheit Toxics bleibt die aktuelle Story, der Aufenthalt in Island, spannend. Dazu noch eine Liebesgeschichte und ein überraschender Schluss - einfach gelungen. Die volle Punktzahl gibt es nur deshalb nicht, weil es gelegentlich doch ein bisschen sehr schräg war.

[irgendwiejuna · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Ein Buch, wie ein Rausch. Rasant, böse, liebenswert!

[ptdilloway-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

The first half of this book was pretty good. Sort of like the movie "In Bruges" where a hitman botches a hit and has to lie low in a dull European town. Then it turns into some Gerard Butler-Katherine Heigl romantic comedy. Boring.

I really got tired of the colorful similes. Maybe it's the translating to English, but some of them didn't make much sense. Like this one: "Her skin was the color of Philadelphia Cream Cheese." Um, dude, have you ever SEEN cream cheese? That stuff is like snow white. So you're saying her skin is snow white like a Geisha girl or KISS fan. Anyway, if you want a thrilling hitman story you're barking up the wrong tree but then I suppose if you want a gentle romcom you're also barking up the wrong tree.

[aramissciant · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I have very conflicted views on this book. On the one hand, it is very very funny in parts. The writing can be deliciously sarcastic and some of the characters are very interesting. On the other hand, I felt like those stand-up comedians who think that you need a string of expletives to be funny. Another reviewer compared him to Joseph Heller which to me sounds completely perplexing. Heller never needed to stoop so low to create funny situations. The author sometimes goes for the cheap shots, for the tired racist cliches, for the expletive-laden vulgarities and that, for me, definitely detracted from the enjoyment. Can't say I'll be looking forward for his next book.