The Ax

The multi-award-winning, widely-acclaimed mystery master Donald E. Westlake delivers a masterpiece with this brilliant, laser-sharp tale of the deadly consequences of corporate downsizing. Burke Devore is a middle-aged manager at a paper company when the cost-cutting ax falls, and he is laid off. Eighteen months later and still unemployed, he puts a new spin on his job search -- with agonizing care, Devore finds the seven men in the surrounding area who could take the job that rightfully should be his, and systematically kills them. Transforming himself from mild-mannered middle manager to ruthless murderer, he discovers skills ne never knew ne had -- and that come to him far too easily. Burke Devore is a paper company manager, a man who can tell you everything you ever wanted to know about bleaching processes and the edible wood pulp they put in ice cream. For twenty-five years Burke has provided for his family and played by the rules. Until now. Now Devore is slipping away: from his wife, his family, and from all norms of civilized behavior. Burke Devore wants his life back. And he will do anything to get it. From his attempts to land a new job, to the growing rift between him and his loved ones, Devore knows that he is running out of time. Believing that there is just one way to earn the only job he has a chance of getting, he sets off on a path from which there can be no turning back--no matter how bizarre and violent, no matter who gets in the way; no matter how evil Burke Devore becomes. Burke Devore is gunning for his competition, and it's getting easier every time. . . . In this relentlessly fascinating novel, the masterful Donald Westlake takes us on a journey of obsession and outrage inside a quiet man's desperate world. And as we follow in Devore's blood-soaked footsteps, the question begins to echo darkly: A man who lost his job as manager of a paper mill resorts to murder to obtain work. He is Burke Devore of Connecticut and his plan is to kill a manager to create an opening and kill the likely applicants so as to leave him the only candidate. But the scheme does not work the way he intended I've never actually killed anybody before, murdered another person, snuffed out another human being.