The Informant (Butcher's Boy Book 3)

The Butcher's Boy (BB) is an otherwise nameless professional assassin who had worked for organized crime and was the top man in his field. His nom de guerre stems from the fact he was adopted by the local butcher in his town who, in reality, was a paid assassin. He taught his adopted son all the tricks of his real profession. The son turned out to be a natural. He worked for any Mafia don who would pay him and generally killed Mafia figures who had fallen out of favor with their capos or mob rivals.BB has been retired for the better part of 10 years when the book opens, living in England. He is recognized by people from his past and because he made many enemies in his work becomes a target for them. About the same time he makes contact with Elizabeth Waring, an investigator for the Department of Justice, whose job it is to track the mobsters and their activities. She desperately wants to turn BB into an informant against those who are trying to kill him. BB declines. Instead, he decides the best way to solve his problem is to eliminate his enemies.From this point the book is a series of confrontations as BB dispatches his enemies in an amazingly dispassionate way. Killing is his job and he does it as efficiently and thoroughly as he can with no emotion. Sometimes he initiates the action and other times his adversaries do. In all cases the outcome is the same and he will not stop until he has killed everyone who threatens him. Elizabeth is the counterpoint to BB's attitude. They continue to interact throughout the book, while each pursues their ulterior motives, never trusting one another. The final scene is highly predictable yet I still found it entertaining.I really wouldn't call this book a thriller because there is little suspense. It is action packed and does supply that type of thrills. The killing, of which there is a lot, its generally so mechanical and matter of fact there is little shock value until you realize just how cold blooded BB is. That is shocking, yet entertaining.

This whole series is outstanding. Even though I read #4 first.Sorry there won't be more, but Mr. Perry told us several times through "whatever his name really is" that he was too old for this kind of work. So we will read the rest of Mr. Perry's books and be just as happy.

Just when you think you've read the best book, one like this comes along.One of the best books I've ever read. The character development is great. The plot is non stop. I will be reading more about the butcher's boy

Held my interest from start to finish. I believed the butcher was capable of doing what he needed to survive.

The story picks up again with more threats to The Butcher’s Boy’s existence and his desire to be left alone. The writing is every bit as good as the first two books and the author gives us a bigger glimpse into the lives of the main characters, it’s a fun read.

Talk about a page turner, This is the second time I have read this book and I might, in the future, read it again, The Author “Thomas Perry” seems to have insight as what should happen before it happens and it does. Talk about ,Who,What,Where,When and why.The “ Mafia “ Was real, perhaps it still is , I was around in its heyday in New York and other large cities from the 1940,s thru the 1980,sIt’s a great read,but remember, it’s only a book!

Lesson learned from the first three books: always pay your hitman. 😀Second lesson learned: If you got guts use them. If you don’t, get them. It could be the difference between life and death.Lesson three: Don’t show off. Instead do the job. Stay focused.See my review on Red Rising by Pierce Brown about making the right choices at the level that one is at. See also Rabbi Dessler’s מכתב מאליהו volume 1 regarding the concept of נקודת הבחירה. Therefore, IMO, at the level that the BB is at he has made the right choices.Granted that he came to his position of taking on the mafia because of what happened to him. But, since then he has killed people who most probably didn’t deserve to live.The people that he killed before all this started were the Senator and the Union person. That was outright murder.The descriptions of the Mafia families and operations are amazing. Don’t know if it’s like that in real life. But, if it is they are very interesting. I have a new appreciation of what organized crime really means.It’s a whole structural hierarchy ecosystem that is formidable. It’s hard to fight it and even harder to join it. This is the most succinct way to put it.Probably the most significant lesson of all is this: Before doing anything stop, stay calm. Consider your circumstances with critical analysis. Weigh your options. Think. Then proceed.

Fast action and tight plot. Building a relationship between the Butcher’s Boy and Agent Elizabeth Warren made it even better.

I really like this book. There's a sense of world weariness about the Butcher's Boy as he wants to escape the world that found him again. It was also interesting seeing how much the world had changed this time around (compare the pressures on women here comapred to The Butcher's Boy for instance)Not as ground breaking as The Butchers Boy (but neither was Sleeping Dogs), but a sense of completion to the series. Definitely worth a read, especially if you can find it cheap

I hesitated before ordering this having seen a misleading comment in one of the reviews suggesting it was simply a reissue of Sleeping Dogs. I'm glad that I took a chance - it the new third book in the Butcher's Boy series (following The Butcher's Boy 1982 and Sleeping Dogs 1992) and lives up to the standards of its predecessors. Like Richard Stark's Parker novels, it pulls you into sympathy with an amoral criminal. Unlike them, it also provides you with a heroine on the side of the law, a Justice Dept analyst who has been tracking him for years. As always with Perry the writing is excellent, the plotting intricate and taut and it's good to have lead characters who acknowledge the passage of time. It's a mystery that Perry has never received the recognition he deserves in Britain.

Another fantastic story from Thomas Perry.I've read everything he's written and enjoyed them all. His books do all tend to follow a certain blueprint with a victim or indeed hitman being chased across the country by aggressors/ the Mafia and escaping by the skin of their teeth with the help of Jane Whitefield or their own cunning. If you like this sort of story you will love Thomas Perry who is a master of the genre and thoroughly recommended.

The author made several errors in this last book of a trilogy that spans 20years in the life of the butcher's boy. An alias that had been made in the previous book was used again . The ending where he supposedly makes it impossible to identify one of 3 men so that it can be assumed that one of the corpses is him glosses over details such as DNA and how come fingerprints are all of a sudden damaged . Furthermore fingerprints in the S U V would have been found and connected to the other 2 corpses.

Should a law officer protect and even help the most evil man kill many evil men who wish they were him? After a lot of repetitive murders, that question is left unanswered, probably to sell all the sequels. The auther needs the sequels to keep his pet villain in his life. No sequels for me though.