I was fortunate to receive a free copy of the book Hostile Takeover by Shane Kuhn from the
publishers Simon & Schuster for a review. I had never heard of it before
but it sounded like it could be interesting, it looked like style I hadn’t really read
before, and like it could possibly funny; it involved the repercussions of a hit man disguised
as an intern taking down and taking over the organization he once worked for.
My first thought as I was introduced to the narrator and
subject of the story, John Lago, was…what an arrogant ass… The next thing I
learned was that Hostile Takeover was
actually the sequel to a book called The
Intern’s Handbook which apparently is the story of how and why he wrote the
book and which outlines the actual attack on HR, the company he worked for as a hit man, and detailing the death of his former boss. Then, there’s Alice, John’s
wife/ex-wife/attempted murdered/ attempted hit. Oh yes, it gets complicated and
then some; it’s like watching a high school relationship play out in between high
powered guns and with a lot more “fucks” thrown in (the characters seem to have
as much range and depth as your typical tuned out teenager).
From the start, you can hear the swagger between the
pauses of John’s spoken and unspoken thoughts. You can practically see the
quirked grin that opens to spew out little more than profanity and bravado to
the point you aren’t sure whether to laugh or finally shove your fist down his
throat. The story starts with John speaking
with an agent named Fletcher that John contemptuously refers to as “Fletch”,
and relays the events of the takeover of HR by John and Alice up to the
present, where John resides in FBI custody in the interrogation room after
having been arrested.
It’s hard to know how much of this book to take seriously
as a story. Admittedly the chapters are short and easy to get through and with
the style simple to read it is easy to glide through this book. Often times, I
found myself having to put it down and laughing to myself off to the side
because something the narrator said was so ludicrous or absolutely improbable,
even with suspension of disbelief.
For instance, John, having to be the biggest boy on the
playground learns the Chinese art of “Iron Palm” which, according to Wikipedia,
is the martial art of conditioning the hands to deliver powerful blows without
injury to their hands.
It is not his learning this technique that I question,
no, it is that a random, powerful, paranoid, Chinese businessman and all of his security guards, just
happen to recognize John as a student of Iron Palm, and essentially are
*all* incredibly impressed by his mastering it…..
Seriously? I found myself asking that repeatedly throughout
this book. At some point I just found every new dramatic inevitability
laughable. Whether it was snatches of dialogue, a new absurd situation, or the
complete suspension of disbelief involving how much of a “badass” John Lago is.
Considering how many gun battles, fist fights, knives, and things that go boom that
this guy gets into, he doesn’t seem to get hit much, or at least it doesn’t
seem to have much effect upon him, and I’m including pre-Iron Palm powers too…
Then, again, there’s Alice. Essentially the only woman in
the book, she is referred to as “crazy” and paranoid multiple times as
personality traits, in addition to her mood swinging behavior and radical
decision making: one minute in love with Lago, the next trying to kill him.
John and Alice’s supposed loyalty to each other is hard to take seriously and difficult
not to view as at least semi-sarcastic.
My only other issue involves the lack of women, and how
the very few in the book are portrayed or used in the story. One line in
particular still stands out, while in a strip club (of course), our delightful
narrator mentions, referring to the dancers, that he “speaks their primitive
lipstick language”…I’m still not sure how to process that, and so I tell myself
to let it go…but it irks me a bit, oh well. Also, the fact that the only
“strong” female character is portrayed as a bipolar, paranoid, power hungry,
woman with a gun and the desire to shoot, not my favorite aspect, I’ll say.
Hostile Takeover
was definitely not quite like anything else I’ve read before. You could easily
read this one without having read the first because the events are explained
and referred to quickly. I’m just not sure it’s the kind of book that’s for me
or one I would recommend to anyone to instantly go read. If you see it in a
library, it might give you a laugh, or you might thoroughly enjoy it more than
I did, who is to say? I just prefer something with a little more substance than
is in this book and the characters in it, which honestly remind me more of
teenagers trying to act like adults playing with a bunch of money and weaponry,
oh and drugs, plenty of drugs being had.
To each their own. Some people are definitely going to
love it, and if the synopsis on the cover sounds like your kind of book, go for
it. It’s one hell of a ride.