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Contract by Simon Spurrier
01/06/2007 . Source: Geoff Willmetts 
pub: Headline. 403 page hardback. Price: £12.99 (UK). ISBN: 978-07553-3588-6. Buy Contract in the USA - or Buy Contract in the UK  check out websites: www.madaboutbooks.com, www.headline.co.uk and www.hodderheadline.com
I have to say this is a somewhat odd book. The first person narrative strings it along but the fantasy element is almost sublime.
Twenty-eight year-old Michael Point is an assassin as he continually reminds you. We see his life in a police interrogation room briefly before going over some of the assassinations he's committed before his capture. This is also very modern and show some of the tactics used to avoid being recognised and being picked up by forensics. Author Simon Spurrier looks like he's read some of the same books that I've read. The problem for Point is that his recent shot victims get up from the dead and its only by chopping them up do they stay dead.
He finds this odd but carries on his profession. After all, it's the only one he knows. He also gets hooked by a major gangland mobster to do three hits, each tougher than the last but with better pay-offs so he can retire. It's a good incentive until he's double-crossed. Beyond that, its very difficult to say much more about the plot without giving too much away. In fact, I'm not even sure I totally get it which I suspect Spurrier has done to leave it open to interpretation by the reader. Ultimately then, this is more an intelligent read written by a mind poker player who only shows cards when he wants to and you have to look behind the written word as to what is really going on here.
I'm not entirely convinced on one level that this story is either fantasy, horror or SF. Neither to that is it a thriller at least not in the accepted shelf of the genre. I suspect bookshops will be puzzling just where to put it. Hopefully, they'll probably put it in the general fiction rather than think its something to do with contract bridge. Whether the book will have a general interest is hard to say.
Writing first person is very difficult. To sustain it for a novel being a lot tougher. Spurrier is also of the method acting school of writing. Unless he's an assassin in his spare time, he took on the persona of Michael Point in its entirety to make it work. Point is not a particularly nice person with somewhat odd morality issues but if Spurrier had played him any other way he would have been less convincing. Read with caution but read with a knowing smile at the end if you work it out.
GF Willmetts
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