Victor Maynard, the very proper English assassin for hire at the center of ''Wild Target,'' is nothing if not professional. He approaches his work with meticulous attention to protocol and detail, and also with unmistakable panache. As he dispatches, by blade or bullet or defenestration, various anonymous victims -- he has nothing personal against any of them of course -- he practices French verb conjugations, part of a program of disciplined self-improvement that seems to have carried him into a comfortable and productive, if solitary, middle age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
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