"Hit Me" (Mulholland Books), by Lawrence Block

When we last left Keller, Lawrence Block's killer-for-hire anti-hero, he was on the run after being framed for a political assassination in the 2008 thriller, "Hit and Run."

Now, five years later, we find living him living in New Orleans with a new identity, Nicholas Edwards. He's got a charming new wife named Julia, who knows about his past, and daughter Jenny makes three. Instead of poisoning, strangling, or shooting people, he's making a living rehabbing and flipping houses.