| View Larger Image | Pest Control | Paperbackby Bill Fitzhugh (Author)
| List Price: | $13.95 | | Price: | $11.92 | | You Save: | $2.03 (15%) | | | Available: | Usually ships in 24 hours |
| | Binding: | Paperback | | Publisher: | Harper Paperbacks | | Page Count: | 320 Pages | | Publication Date: | April 01, 2005 | | Sales Rank: | 360,924th |
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EDITORIAL REVIEWS |
Product Description
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. |
CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 4.0 based on 99 reviews)
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From the Horses Mouth by Christopher Allen Taylor (Oxford, MS, USA)  5 Stars
July 20, 2009
Being an English major, I have been introduced to many works of fiction throughout my tenure, none of which being as unique or enthralling as Pest Control. You can genuinely tell Fitzhugh did extreme research on the species mentioned in the novel. Another great area of the book is the character creation and development.
It is not for everyone though. It is a bit slow at times, though only to set up genuinely funny situations. More than once i was explaining the situations to my friends, only to realize i was reving like a lunatic. I did find my self reading the entire novel in a two day period because i wanted to know what happened next.
i would definitely recommend this book to someone who is looking fo something a little different.
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review of Pest Control by H. S. Vishniac (Stillwater, Oklahoma United States)  4 Stars
January 24, 2008
I am a fan of Fitzhugh, so the reader will gather that I go for zany humor. this is one of his best!
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"I laughed until my head fell off" -- Barzan Ibrahim by David W. Clary 5 Stars
January 15, 2007
If Robert Ludlum and Douglas Adams had wild homosexual monkey love (not that there's anything wrong with that) with each other before their individual demises, their bastard love child would have been Bill Fitzhugh.
More succinctly, Fitzhugh's novel Pest Control takes the best thriller elements of Ludlum's memory-addled spies and Adam's irreverent humo(u)r and sensibilities and hybrids them (to verb a noun) like so many assassin bugs in the Bugarariums of protagonist Bob Dillon.
In a world where the top 5 assassins know their individual ranks, and where there are still "exterminations" that need doing, hapless Dillon answers a classified ad in a drunken stupor. An ad to kill a man.
When that man dies, Bob's to blame, and everyone from a transvestite dwarf to the CIA gunning for him.
It's a fast page-turner, with at least one chuckle, smile or groaner on every page. Fortunately, the groaners are outnumbered by the smiles and chuckles at least 3-to-1.
Characters are all unique, in some cases (ok, all cases) bizarrely so, as in the case of Bob's daughter's best friend's mother, who has a circus fetish involving dwarfs, bags of peanuts, and... well, really, isn't that enough?
You have to come into this book with a sense of humor. Perhaps even an advanced sense of humor. Curmudgeons will flee this book faster than an cockroach from a flashlight.
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Unique Idea, Brilliantly Done! Can't Wait to Read the Sequel! by James N Simpson (Gold Coast, QLD Australia) 5 Stars
October 08, 2006
Fitzhugh's debut novel Pest Control introduced the reading public to a new great author who proved through subsequent novels such as The Organ Grinders, Cross Dressing and Radio Activity to name but three, that he was neither a one hit wonder and that he can keep coming up with masterpiece quality surreal and unique ideas that will entertain until the final page. The next book to be published by Fitzhugh (assuming you are reading this review still when the latest published novel was Highway 61 Resurfaced) is apparently the sequel to Pest Control. Can't wait to get a copy of that!
In Pest Control Bob Dillon's aim is to become the ultimate exterminator, and fed up with the way his current employer is polluting the environment and only providing a short term band aid solution to cockroaches, silverfish and other pests he quits determined to start his own business. Only problem is Bob is in severe financial debt, behind on the rent and about to have his electricity cut off so his wife understandably is a bit annoyed with his hasty decision. Bob is undeterred though, knowing he is about to have a breakthrough with his environmentally sustainable cross bred Assassin Bugs that will be the next big thing, make him rich and more importantly allow him to afford a new truck with a really big fibreglass bug on top, maybe even two.
Meanwhile the world's top ranked assassin has turned down a hit on a target that really needs to be killed straight away so with other top ranked assassins not available in this short time frame underworld organiser of this sort of thing Marcel, reluctantly places an add in a New York newspaper. Professional Exterminator Needed ASAP $50K in a weekend. Drunk at the time Bob doesn't read between the lines, applies for the job then forgets all about until Marcel turns up on his doorstep. Marcel never figures out Bob is an insect exterminator and gives the terrified Bob the contract. When the target turns up dead, Bob's career as a highly paid hitman is underway. Unbeknownst to Bob, through coincidental deaths he is fast climbing the ranking of the best hitman for hire. It is not long before the CIA want to employ him, and one of his 'victim's' brothers puts a record price on Bob's head that brings the world's top assassins out of the wood work and after him.
This is one of the best books I have read in a long while. Also check out Fitzhugh's other work. If you like this sort of thing and want to read similar authors also check out Dave Barry's fiction novels or Carl Hiaasen as well.
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Sorta like Monty Python...minus the humor by Steve Summers (San Diego)  2 Stars
March 31, 2006
PEST CONTROL was my first book by Mr. Fitzhugh and 30 pages into it I decided it will probably be my last. The plot outline--ordinary Joe too fixated on his entomological obsession to notice he's been accidentally mistaken for an international assassin--is an ingeniously set stage ripe for grand comedy. Alas, the curtain never rises above knee level. The central events & conversations which must create the grand illusion on which the story hinges are unimaginative, unconvincing, and alas, not very funny. The story goes from there into an adolescent action slapstick, full of too many hastily-created throwaway characters that mostly showcase the author's lack of descriptive power.
If ever a story cried out for an editor this it it. His awful similes ("Their hearts were harder than trying to open an oyster with a wet bus ticket.") only look good compared to the juvenile imagination which chases the increasingly implausible plot into an oddly tedious crescendo of casual New York slaughter. The final resolution tries to leap too many logical potholes to survive the crossing into epilogue intact. The utter unreality of Fitzhugh's cartoonish world could have been a comedic asset if it were consistent, but it doesn't just migrate as the pages wear on, it gallops away, leaving this reader wondering by the end why he didn't quit on page 30.
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SIMILAR PRODUCTS |
| Cross Dressing
by Bill Fitzhugh (Author)
Big-shot ad exec Dan Steele feels entitled to the best life has to offer -- even if he has to live way beyond his means to acquire it. But there's hope on the horizon. Dan has just stolen what's sure to be an award-winning idea for a multimillion-dollar account. If he can keep the creditors at bay long enough, he'll get the keys to the executive restroom and all his problems will be solved. Unfortunately, that's when his brother, a Catholic priest, shows up at Dan's door in need of a...
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| Organ Grinders
by Bill Fitzhugh (Author)
Bill Fitzhugh strikes again! Following his widely acclaimed debut novel, Pest Control (The [London] Times called it "one of the funniest, most off-beat thrillers in years"), Fitzhugh turns his satirical eye to the merging of medical science and big business -- with hilarious and outrageous results. Paul Symon is an environmentalist who's out to make the world a better place, but he faces too much disjointed information, public apathy, and self-serving talk. Not to mention greedy...
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| Heart Seizure: A Novel
by Bill Fitzhugh (Author)
Spence Tailor, a lawyer with an actual set of principals, loves his mama, Rose. Rose—with advanced cardiomyopathy and a rare blood type—is scheduled for a heart transplant. But when the president's heart craps out during a photo op three months before the national election, the White House chief of staff orders the FBI to seize the heart that was going to Rose—all in the name of democracy. But Spence isn't about to let anybody steal what rightfully belongs to his mom. So with the help...
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| Fender Benders
by Bill Fitzhugh (Author)
In his first three novels, Bill Fitzhugh created new strains of homicidal insects, sliced open the illegal transplant business, and sinfully skewered the Church and Madison Avenue with the same spear. Now he turns his attention to the hitmaking machinery of Music City, U.S.A. Depending on your point of view, Fender Benders is either a skewed look at the country music industry or a clear-eyed view of a damn screwy business. It's a Grand Old Opera complete with murder, treachery, greed,...
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| Radio Activity
by Bill Fitzhugh (Author)
When a DJ stops showing up for work at WAOR-FM, Rick Shannon moves back to Mississippi to take the night shift. No sooner than he settles into the job, Rick finds a mysterious reel of tape that just might explain what happened to the missing DJ. His curiosity piqued, Rick starts poking around and soon finds himself going down a road littered with extortion, arson, murder, and an FCC violation that makes Howard Stern look like a Cub Scout. Before you can say "Stairway to Heaven," Rick...
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