"John Lago is an intern at one of the biggest law firms in Manhattan. He clocks eighty hours a week getting coffee, answering phones, and doing all of the shit work no one else wants to do ... and he doesn't make a dime. But John isn't trying to claw his way to the top of the corporate food chain. He was hired to assassinate one of the firm's high profile, heavily guarded partners. His internship is the perfect cover--enabling him to gather intel and secure the access he needs to execute a clean, untraceable kill. A cinematic (and psychopathic) thriller, The Intern's Handbook is John Lago's unofficial survival guide for new recruits at Human Resources, Inc.--John's real employer and a front for one of the most elite assassin training and "placement" programs in the world. What starts as a handbook becomes a darkly comic memoir in which John chronicles his final assignment and takes the reader on a twisted, violent thrill ride in which he is pitted against the strongest adversary he has ever faced--Alice, a federal agent assigned to investigate the same law firm partner John's been hired to kill. In juxtaposition to John's blood-soaked bravado are FBI surveillance transcripts in which he unwittingly exposes the deep scars from his horrific childhood, longs to connect with his true family, and, through Alice, hopes that love will help him find redemption from the body count that haunts his past and threatens his future"--
John Lago is not your average intern. He’s an assassin trained to infiltrate corporate America and kill his assigned target. And like all things, he’s got an expiration date. The Intern’s Handbook tells the story of Lago’s final mission for HR, Inc.
The Intern’s Handbook read like an action movie on paper. The plot moved swiftly from fight scene to fight scene, but Kuhn left little to the emotional build up of the story’s characters. While I found it an enjoyable quick read, I often skipped over John’s long monologue-esque pages of past missions and advice. About a third of the way through I became less interested in the non stop action and started wondering where the actual meat of the story was. While the ending “twist” was somewhat well contrived, the characters lacked any emotional development which hindered the twist in the end.
Kuhn is a screenwriter and filmmaker, and those two attributes come across clear in his first novel. If you are looking for a quick, action packed read, with very little in the way of emotional development of its characters – this is the book for you. Three stars because it was well written and the plot itself is interesting, but I wish the characters were a little more fleshed out.
