Rating: 
Summary: Too much Kate Morgan, not enough Christopher Marlowe
Review: Just as no one wants to believe Elvis died sitting on the commode, no one wants to believe the great playwright Christopher Marlow died, stabbed through the eye socket during a drinking bout with a bunch of lowlife friends.
Leslie Silbert uses the Marlow murder as a hook for her modern thriller, THE INTELLIGENCER. She shifts back and forth from "modern times" to 1593, the year of Marlowe's murder. During the modern times segment, Silbert's hero, private eye Kate Morgan, is called to investigate the attempted theft of a 16th Century manuscript compiled by Thomas Phelippes who had worked for Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth spymaster. According to Silbert, Marlowe was a spy for Queen Elizabeth and he became embroiled in the Sir Robert Cecil, Lord Essex rivalry.
Another plot thread, during the modern sequences, has the Slade Group, an off-the books CIA company whom Morgan works for, trying to save one of their operatives, who had been tortured in an Iranian prison.
The Marlowe plot thread works well enough, but the modern-day stuff is awfully convoluted, and when Silbert tries to pull everything together, the whole thing folds like a pup tent.
If you'd like to read about the actual Marlowe murder, Silbert suggests THE RECKONING: THE MURDER OF CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE by Charles Nicholl.
Rating: 
Summary: 16th century espionage enticing the 21st century
Review: Leslie Silbert wrote a compelling novel about espionage in the 16th century and the effects it has in the 21st century.
Kate Morgan, a spy, with the Slade Group, an extention of the CIA, has been given an assignment to help decode an old manuscript for one of the Slade Groups valuable clients. No one knows what is in this manuscript but Kate's passion for Elizabethan espionage has her brain dancing.
Silbert weaves the story from 2 different time periods, showing how the actions of Christopher "Kit" Marlowe, playwright and spy, have shaped the reactions of the villians in the 21st century. The chapters switch between Marlowes world and Kate's world, and you are never truly sure who the bad guy is until the end.
What kept this from being a 5* book is that one story line seemed to just fall short. Hopefully that particular storyline will continue in her next Kate Morgan story.
Rating: 
Summary: Exciting debut novel that leaves you wanting to read more
Review: Leslie Silbert's debut "The Intelligencer" is a truly remarkable novel that manages to successfully intertwine two storylines that take place centuries apart. Fair warning - if you are not a fan of historical fiction, you might actually turn into one by the end of this book! The reason is that Silbert has done a masterful job researching and writing the portion of the story involving famous playwright Christopher Marlowe who doubles as one of England's first secret servicemen. So well written is the portion set in the 1590's that you feel you are actually there interacting with the characters.The beauty of the novel is how Silbert takes this centuries old tale and ties it together with a suspenseful present day story while delivering a huge twist at the end. How? Well without giving away anything that you wouldn't read on the dust jacket - the connection lies in a mysterious manuscript uncovered by present day private investigator/CIA undercover operative Kate Morgan. She must discover the origin of the document and what secrets its codes hold, and she must do it quickly...someone is willing to kill to uncover its secrets. Combining suspense, humor (Playwright Marlowe is unimpressed with this "new Will Shakespeare fellow") drama, and even elements of a love story, this first novel by Leslie Silbert reads as if she has been writing her entire life. Add in quite a few surprising revelations about a few of the main characters and you have a novel that will, by the end, leave you wondering how so much was packed into a relatively short book. Eagerly awaiting her next novel!
Rating:
Summary: Exciting debut novel that leaves you wanting to read more
Review: Leslie Silbert's debut "The Intelligencer" is a truly remarkable novel that manages to successfully intertwine two storylines that take place centuries apart. Fair warning - if you are not a fan of historical fiction, you might actually turn into one by the end of this book! The reason is that Silbert has done a masterful job researching and writing the portion of the story involving famous playwright Christopher Marlowe who doubles as one of England's first secret servicemen. So well written is the portion set in the 1590's that you feel you are actually there interacting with the characters. The beauty of the novel is how Silbert takes this centuries old tale and ties it together with a suspenseful present day story while delivering a huge twist at the end. How? Well without giving away anything that you wouldn't read on the dust jacket - the connection lies in a mysterious manuscript uncovered by present day private investigator/CIA undercover operative Kate Morgan. She must discover the origin of the document and what secrets its codes hold, and she must do it quickly...someone is willing to kill to uncover its secrets. Combining suspense, humor (Playwright Marlowe is unimpressed with this "new Will Shakespeare fellow") drama, and even elements of a love story, this first novel by Leslie Silbert reads as if she has been writing her entire life. Add in quite a few surprising revelations about a few of the main characters and you have a novel that will, by the end, leave you wondering how so much was packed into a relatively short book. Eagerly awaiting her next novel!
Rating:
Summary: Good characters, disappointing storyline
Review: Leslie Silbert's erudite thriller follows the investigations of two intelligence operatives working parallel cases some 400 years apart. Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe, in the last month before his fatal stabbing (in May of 1593), uncovers a smuggling operation and ruffles some highly placed feathers. And in our own century, private investigator/secret agent/quondam Renaissance scholar Kate Morgan is juggling two cases, one the attempted theft of a 400-year-old packet of intelligence documents from the safe of playboy Cidro Medina, and the other an 11-million-dollar payoff by art dealer Luca de Tolomei to an Iranian intelligence officer. Of the two interlaced stories, Kate Morgan's is the more engrossing. It is not so thrilling as to keep anyone up past bedtime, and the storyline which does prompt some concern for Kate's safety peters out disappointingly in the end. The flow of the primary tale, meanwhile, is disrupted by Marlowe's story, which punctuates Kate's in roughly alternating chapters. But The Intelligencer is worth the read because it is clever and because its principal character--Kate, not Marlowe--is so well-delineated and likeable. The secondary players in Kate's universe are intriguing as well: her secret agent boss with a classics degree from Princeton, her father the senator, her dead fiance. We can look forward to learning more about them in subsequent books, as Kate is evidently intended to anchor a new series: according to the jacket blurb, the author is currently at work on a second Kate Morgan novel.
Rating: 
Summary: i would give it a lower score if that were possible
Review: Pretension without ability, ingenuity, or originality.
Buy a real book.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Such a great idea... such a terrible book. Aside from the anachronistic language and wish fulfillment in the Marlowe plot, the history was mildly interesting. But in terms of giving life and voice to Christopher Marlowe, a sci-fi book called "Armor of Light" does a much better job.
Even so, I would have far rather spend more time with Silbert's version of Marlowe, than Silbert's poorly disguised version of herself, Kate Morgan. Ok sure, an investigator/government agent should be good at their job, but Mary S-er, Kate is an investigator/government agent/Renaissance Scholar/kick boxer/object of sexual desire of every male she meets/with a tragic romance in her past. Too perfectly perky and utterly unrealistic. I didn't want to cheer on her heroine, I wanted to slap her.
Rating:
Summary: Great Idea Surrounded by Muck
Review: Take one great idea (Marlowe) and mix it up with tired, formula thriller elements and you get this book. The writing is pedestrian, the characters stock and the pacing uneven. Nice cover, though.
Rating: 
Summary: It's too bad...
Review: that, as at least one other reviewer mentioned, the protagonist is over the top and predictable. It really ruined for me what was an interesting and exciting story. I got tired of reading about perfect, too good to be true Kate Morgan and couldn't stomach finishing the book. My willing suspension of disbelief really hit the limit of willingness after she had quickly cracked several codes, admitted to being a kickbox expert/instructor, used the same type of rare gun for target practice that killed a professor and just happened to be found by a girl in a local pond when she stepped on it, AND was a fan years before of the very same gentleman cat burglar who was killed in the opening scene, (this is just a small sampling of conincidences and talents to easily deal with events in the story). Coincidences are ok, however, too many, just like cooks, can ruin a plot. A more believable, more human protagonist would have made this book a 5 star. And by the way... despite what the "esteemed" author reviewers say, this is no Da Vinci Code.
Rating:
Summary: Marlowe delights as the playwright spy
Review: The mystery of 16th century playwright Christopher Marlowe's premature death is at the core of this stylish and intricate literary thriller, which bounces between the present day and Marlowe's last spying assignment in 1593. New Yorker Kate Morgan, well-rounded Renaissance scholar/private eye/spy, takes on a job involving the botched burglary of a suave English financier's home. The gentleman burglar was after a 16th century book written in code, which Kate quickly determines is a collection of intelligence reports from Elizabeth I's reign, during which time Marlowe took on undercover tasks for the Queen's ministers. While she's deciphering the manuscript she takes on another assignment to get next to a shady international art dealer who has just made an 11million dollar purchase from an Iranian intelligence officer. Unbeknownst to Kate, the Iranian and the art dealer are also involved in the smuggling of an American prisoner from an Iranian prison - a man Kate's boss intends to rescue. Marlowe, caught between rivals for the Queen's favor, takes on a smuggling case of his own - arms dealing, which may involve treason in the highest places. Low-tech Elizabethan eavesdropping and peeping, rumor mongering, slandering, blackmail, frame-ups, and political intrigue run counterpoint to slick modern versions of the same dangerous activities, albeit conducted on a global scale at instantaneous speeds. The Elizabethan sections, headed by quotes from Marlowe's plays, sometimes juxtaposed with quotes from Shakespeare, are excellent. Historical intrigues go forward in atmospheric context, amid tavern plates of venison stew or palace dishes of baked peacock, and under cover of crowded cockfights or the deep darkness of wooded estates or fleeting encounters on the crowded, fetid Thames. Tidbits about ciphers, the theater and Elizabeth's court emerge effortlessly through more speculative treatment of the historical players - including an explanation of the fate of Marlowe. The modern sections are less successful. The writing is uneven and while the action comes fast, the actors are too many and the plot becomes dizzyingly complex. Silbert, a real-life version of Kate, at least as far as resume goes, zips among her glittering, globe-trotting millionaires at a heady clip, sometimes switching viewpoints and countries three or four times in a chapter. Still, working the stories in tandem is a fine idea and Kate, while larger than life, is a brainy, enjoyable character, while the historical plotline is enough to carry the novel through the murkier modern tangle.
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