Frank Buck: Chicago Hitman - (New Chicago Classics) by Joseph G Peterson (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Frank Buck is a fat f*ck. A slob, a middle-aged loser, he's living in Chicagoland with his mother and collecting disability checks, drinking Svedka vodka and driving aimlessly through the nighttime city in the one thing in his life that brings him joy and freedom--a 1989 Cadillac Brougham D'Elegance.

Unfortunately he also has a talent.

His great weight, his ballast, makes him a remarkable shot with all manner of weapons. And this eventually draws him into the orbit of a local gangster and psychopath, a Polaroid-toting maniac named Rodger. In short order Frank is trapped in a seemingly endless and cartoonish routine of bloodshed and gore, a criminal Sisyphus pushing a soul-wearying boulder--or perhaps a biblical figure blundering towards an improbable Golgotha.

Joseph G. Peterson has attracted a devoted readership for his unique blend of sad and funny writing--a series of remarkable books centered around lovable losers stuck in absurdly existential situations reminiscent of both Camus and the Coen Brothers. Here he's created perhaps his most memorable book, a pulpy reverie unlike anything you'll ever read.

Review Quotes

Peterson is "one of the Windy City's best-kept secrets."

-- Kirkus

"Frank Buck: Chicago Hitman is tragic opera. There's symphonic majesty in the simple-but-poetic voice of Frank Buck, whose sole talent is to shoot bullets with preternatural accuracy. When a mobster named Rodger pays Frank good 'cash money' to satisfy his sadistic whims, Frank is ushered along the Chicago streets toward his terrible destiny, and we the reader ride shotgun, bearing witness to the carnage. Peterson brings his heartbreakingly real protagonist to life with the same pinpoint precision as the hired man's hits. Shocking, unflinching, and mesmerizing in its brutality, Peterson's tale is a haunting and beautiful meditation on the question of whether we choose our fates or our fates choose us."

-- Darrin Doyle, author of Let Gravity Seize the Dead

"Frank Buck has flaws, but he takes care of his widowed mother and makes sure the bills are paid. Like most of us, Frank is just a paycheck away from becoming a criminal. When he loses it, he takes advantage of his one innate talent. He's very good at killing people. In Peterson's novel, we go along with Frank on a ride in which murder is a job and the boss is a psychopath. It's one helluva ride with one helluva shot."

-- Bob Hartley, author of North and Central

Peterson is "a master of contemplative, poetic prose."

-- Newcity

About the Author

Joseph G. Peterson grew up in Wheeling, Illinois. He worked in an aluminum mill and in the masonry trade as a laborer. He attended the University of Chicago, where he got his BA in philosophy. He's the author of ten previous books, including Gunmetal Blue, which led Kirkus Reviews to dub him "one of the Windy City's best-kept secrets," and The Perturbation of O, which caused Newcity to call him "a master of contemplative, poetic prose." He lives in Chicago, and works in publishing.