Book Log 2007 #11: The Ethical Assassin by David Liss

Liss is better known for historical mysteries with a financial bend, like The Coffee Trader that I'd read previously. But he's also pretty adept at mysteries in the present, as this book demonstrates. It follows a kid whose selling encyclopedias who gets caught up with the sort of Floridian criminal element that Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiassen have made popular. I don't read much by either of those authors, so it's hard for me to say if my enjoyment would have been diminished by comparison.

Even with that caveat, I'd recommend the book highly. Fun story, good characters, and better written than the usual commuter fare.