Elizabeth Waring is a Justice Department agent assigned to investigate the killing of a union leader, the victim of a fertilizer explosion in the back of his truck. Was it an accident, or the work of a hitman... ?Yeah, I have to admit that this wasn't what I expected. It started strong. Elizabeth was a young agent who quickly got in over her head. Our nameless hitman, The Butcher's Boy of the title, is suddenly targeted for murder by someone high up in the Las Vegas mob. The story had all the momentum of a blockbuster thriller starring Christian Bale as the hitman and Scarlet Johannsen as the Elizabeth.
So what went wrong?
The plot meandered all over the place until I stopped caring. Both main characters kept doing stupid things with no motivation and weird leaps in logic. It was obvious who the mole was in the Justice Department from very early on. I just didn't care about the nameless hitman enough to care who wanted him dead. FYI, the guy who wanted him dead NEVER made an actual appearance in the story.
While this book had its moments, they were few and far between. If you like your crime fiction dumbed down and kind of pointless, go ahead and pick this up.