The Shot Review

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The Shot ReviewAt this point, I have read all of Philip Kerr's in-print works with the exception of the Berlin Noir trilogy (which I have but have not yet read). "The Shot" ranks about average among those works; it's pretty good but doesn't have either the deepness of thought exhibited by "A Philosophical Investigation" or the sheer energetic violence of "The Grid."
The plot, such as can be described in a short review, has been adequately set forth in other reviews: essentially, the anti-hero, Tom Jefferson, is a former U.S. marine turned hitman who in 1960 accepts a contract from the Mob and the CIA to kill Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro. That is, until he learns that President-elect Kennedy slept with his wife. All of a sudden, Jefferson is off to kill Kennedy, and the Mob is in the strange position of having to work to protect Kennedy, whom they helped to elect by rigging the election in exchange for calling off the government dogs.
The fact that we know that Kennedy wasn't assassinated in 1960 actually doesn't affect one's enjoyment of the book, because Kerr does a good job of moving the plot along, and because his (for the most part) meticulous research about events in 1960 creates a feeling of verisimilitude. [Someone should tell Kerr that it's the Second Amendment, not the First Amendment, that allegedly guarantees the right to bear arms.]
One gets the feeling that Kerr's spark for writing his novels is something along the lines of "What if . . ." So, we have: (1) What if we could identify a physical characteristic linked to serial killers ("A Philosophical Investigation"); (2) What if there was a building run by a psychopathic supercomputer ("The Grid"); (3) What if there was a supercontagious blood-borne virus for which there was a cure, but the rich purposefully rationed the cure ("The Second Angel"); (4) What if I [Philip Kerr] tried to write a novel like Elmore Leonard ("A Five-Year Plan"); and (5) What if I [Kerr] tried to write a novel like Michael Crichton ("Esau")?
Along those lines, "The Shot" seems to have been inspired by two separate lines of thought: What if I [Kerr] tried to write a novel about an anti-hero like Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley; and what if I [Kerr] tried to write a Kennedy conspiracy novel?
"The Shot" was compelling enough that I read the last 150 pages in a single sitting. But if you haven't read Kerr before, I would suggest starting with "A Philosophical Investigation" or "The Grid," depending on your sensibilities.The Shot Overview

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