Elmore Leonard’s novel Cat Chaser. At the end of the book, the protagonist shoots the “bad guy” point blank.
Excellent series - but I’m not sure that Keller could be described as a “hero” in the sense the OP is looking for.
Spoilers are inevitable in this thread, right?
In the first Lucas Davenport novel – and, at that, the final Poirot novel – our hero investigates a clever murderer who arranged everything to make a conviction impossible. The twist ending, of course, is that our hero then simply shoots the guy and makes it look like suicide or self-defense or whatever.
Alessan actually gave you a good example earlier, from Buffy Season 5;
the primary evil character in the season, a powerful supernatural being, shared a body with a powerless human. Giles (one of the main characters, if not THE main character) murders her alter ego in cold blood when she has been forced to transform.
You obviously haven’t had your Lucas epiphany yet.
Right- in Curtain, the final Hercule Poirot mystery…
Poirot finds a real-life Iago, a catalyst for murder. This person plays no active role in any crime, but has manipulated numerous decent people into commiting murders.
The elderly Poirot kills this person, because there’s no other way this person could be brought to justice.
Tony Soprano?
But Matt Helm does it better.
For the OP, Charley Varrick at the end of Charley Varrick, the Last of the Independents.
One the better movies and perhaps Matthau’s best. Joe Don is excellent, too.
Harry Callahan in the Dirty Harry movie.
Regards,
Shodan
Yeah. “Buddy, Buddy” has it’s moments.
In L.A. Confidential, incorruptible Exley (one of several candidates for “lead character,” I suppose) shoots the corrupt Capt. Smith in the back. I don’t remember if it was the very last scene or just one of the last.
It sure seemed like Data fired his phaser as Kivas Fajo.
She doesn’t do the deed herself, but at the end of K is for Killer, Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Milhone sets up a guy to be killed by the mob.
I would argue Cugel the Clever committed mass murder a couple of times in Vance’s Overlord books.
Ellery Queen forces a murderer to commit suicide in *Ten Days’ Wonder *(and did something very similar in The Door Between).
You might want to check out the end of Poul Anderson’s A Knight of Ghosts and Shadows. Sir Captain Dominic Flandry does something that even some of his compatriots consider worse.
Aycharaych or his son?
carnivorousplant: I actually was thinking of the destruction of Cherion, “the Greeks of the galaxy,” along with Aycharaych. That was not a happy novel for Sir Dominic.
Yes, but O’Brian kept it from happening.
Besides, the point of that scene wasn’t that Data had tried to kill Fajo; that killing would have been justified as an escape from a kidnapper. The point was that he lied to Riker’s face about it.
Wow! I’ve never seen Buddy Buddy (1981) and based on your say-so I will keep an eye out for it on cable. Netflix isn’t showing it as available at this time.
No one’s mentioned Leroy Jethro Gibbs yet?
Titus Andronicus, Othello – but those are official executions. Richard III and Macbeth, if slaying a foe in a fair fight counts.