Rating: 
Summary: Fails to Leave a Mark
Review: Some writers run aground as there careers progress, while others find greater depths. Having discovered Silva's writing through "The Dead Artist" and "The English Assassin," I've come to expect subtlety and nuance, with sympathetic characters. Silva is one of my new favorite authors.Going back to read "The Mark of the Assassin," for me, was a disappointment. While Silva's concepts and characters match those of his later books, he seems less focused here. We watch political maneuverings, clandestine meetings, brutal attacks, yet never really doubt what's going on. We see little of the main characters within the first hundred pages, and when Michael Osbourne and his wife do take center stage, they are puppets in a less than credible play. The writing is fine. Dialogue moves along. But the improbabilities and coincidences begin to mount quickly. Even as the pace picks up in the last quarter of the book, I found myself doubting the scenes. One example: the KGB trained, world-renowned assassin moves in for the kill by taking the disguise of a bicycle courier(even getting multiple piercings to look the part), but as soon as our erstwhile hero sees him from a distance, the cover is blown. Ah, too bad--all that effort for nothing. For a fast-paced story and streamlined writing, "The Mark of the Assassin" surpasses many second-rate novels. Clearly, though, with only his second book, Silva was fine-tuning his storytelling, and I had a difficult time getting lost in this tale. Having been spoiled by his newer, richer work, I finished this one with barely a mark.
Rating: 
Summary: The Left's Tom Clancy
Review: Let's see, a stupid Republican US Chief Executive who is a patsy for his right-wing handlers, a psycho born-again Christian defense contractor who (God forbid) gets on his knees to pray, a crusading left-wing journalist and the token liberal attorney from a conservative Washington law firm - - can you say "caricature"? Throw in some female careerist infertility and you have the makings of yet another Silva thriller. Can't say I got beyond page 100 in this one. I like a good spy thriller like the next gal, but the stereotypes are over the top on this one, which sent me to the in-flight magazine in the seat pocket in front of me.
Rating: 
Summary: a good thriller
Review: i've read it twice, it gets better with each reading!
Rating:
Summary: Left Wing Ryan
Review: If you are growing tired of the ideological bent of Tom Clancy and Jack Ryan, meet Daniel Silva. This book is something you might have gotten to read if Tom Clancy had been a liberal. A mole assassin is left stranded in deep cover by the end of the Cold War. He goes into business for himself and is ultimately hired by the military-industrial complex to shoot down a passenger jet and blame it on the Palestinians. The real object of the exercise is to get America to deploy a missile defense system and re-elect a right wing President. A resourceful CIA analyst is thrown into the fray and disrupts the bad guys' plans after a lot of good people (including his own wife) have been killed, wounded or otherwise put in harm's way.
If this sounds familiar, it should. It is a variation of the plot of Clancy's Patriot Games, brought out of Ireland and set on the post 9/11 international stage. Silva did much better with The English Assassin. This is basic fluff.
Rating:
Summary: Power, politics and intrigue - a recipe for a great read
Review: A good friend introduced me to Daniel Silva with his first book, The Unlikely Spy. While that was a fictionalized account of how the Allies deceived Hitler as to the location of the D Day landing, this is pure fiction. Or is it? A CIA operative who has a strong moral code and a highly competent professional assassin who serves a secret group made up of the worlds movers and shakers are destined throughout the pages of the book to end up in a confrontation that ends up raising more questions than it settles. Entertaining writing, fast paced action, believable characters and enough allusion to actual people or events to keep you wondering where the fiction blends with the present day. It's a dangerous world out there; especially if you are letting Daniel Silva describe it to you.
Rating:
Summary: not so good, but something hints and smell bad
Review: for the current government. by reading this book, it created a path of thinking and imagination that the september 11th tragedy was a vicious setup to make the government to find means and excuses to freehandling whatever it thought that should be done long time ago. thinking about it, by destroy only two buildings, three thousands people's lives...it would have meant nothing for the 'war on terror' agenda, to wipe off the shame of a meaningless gulf war. two buildings and three thousand lives would only means peanuts and tidbits for government to gain a freehand to increase national defense budget. by carrying out that, the moronic person, just like the puppet-like president in this novel, would easily have surged in the polls, we blind american people would let him do whatever he thinks (if he got the brain to do the thinking) or, be more specifically, the old wolf pack, the v.p. and the defense secretary, both real-time puppet masters, to carry out plans that might only profit certain special interests people, group, corporates, to cash in after the 9-11th tragedy. look what america has become now. are we better than the nazi germany? are we now almost against the whole world? by hunting the monster, are we also becomign a more evil monster ourselves? daniel silva actually wrote this book poorly and not a bit exciting, but he used this book to make the thinking readers dig deeper on the 9-11 tragedy and behind the scene. for the book itself, two third of book was quite messy, new characters kept showing up page after page, chapter after chapter, not very convincinly entwined and merged until the final 1/3 of the book. the sleeping dog typed russian assassin and his involvement of a red army woman was a very poor setting and writing. but silva's smooth writing can keep the readers to read along even it's quite tasteless. i just wish his plot and the construction of a background for his book's whole scenario would be better and more convincing.
Rating: 
Summary: Will anyone get out of this, alive?
Review: An American plane is mid-air when a rocket is launched from the boat of an assassin, killing everyone on board. The United States immediately reacts, informing the public that the attackers are hostile national terrorists whose country must be subdued. The war begins. Is this the real story? This all too familiar tale mirrors the allegations of the Vietnam war all over again. Dear reader is subjected to a complicated ride of examining greed and motivations. One character has the goods on another character who is blackmailing another character. The list goes on and on. But still, this hired assassin, whose trademark for killing is three bullets to the face continues to take down one after another. Whose payroll is he on and who is next? Although the story is fairly formulaic and certainly well-suited for a major motion production, the action is non-stop and has its audience wondering who will get out of this complicated mess, alive.
Rating:
Summary: Love of Conspiracy
Review: First off, this is an interesting book and well worth reading,
but for the conspiracy buff, this would have to be a "5 star"
rating. The author sketches, over the length of this story,
such a conspiracy that could only exist in the minds of the
most imaginative of us. He presents a secret organization composed of capitalists, communists, drug lords, terrorists,
intelligence organizations from both East and West, Arabs,
Israelis and such historically opposed groups as to defy
belief, and he wants us to believe all of these opposing
forces and beliefs get together as one, all for the purpose
of pursuing actions that will benefit all of them.
A bit of belief has to be suspended in order for the reader
to accept this premise.
But the writing is so well done, and the characters so interesting, it is possible to do so.
The story starts out with the downing of a crowded US airliner
over the Atlantic shortly after takeoff, and it takes off from
there with killings so wide-spread and among such a diverse group of people, they are hard to follow. Except for the participants of course.
The hero is a CIA man, and he recognizes quickly the mark of
an assassin he has encountered before, and he begins a dogged
search for that person, and along the way has to deal with many
more deaths, which, even to him, sometimes seem unconnected.
But this is an interesting story, and it will certainly be
stimulating to many.
As said above, conspiracy buffs will salivate over this one.
But the rest of us can still enjoy a good, entertaining story.
Rating:
Summary: all the atributes
Review: This thriller carrys all the key situations. Politics, assassins,
CIA, and Lawyers. I am now on my third book by this author and will enjoy all his writings. I also enjoy the fact of the killer being a accomplished artist with fine tastes. All fiction eminates fact in my book. Could it be true.
Rating:
Summary: Who did it? You won't know even at the end of the book.
Review: The book is filled with vulgar language -- and I assume that the reason was to make the characters sound tough. What happened to showing a tough character rather than telling his threats in language that loses its force by overuse? "F" this, and "F" that, and "F" everything else becomes a cliche' within a couple of chapters. I generally read a book in a day or two, but the convoluted pathways made this one tedius and time consuming. Frequently, I set it aside to watch TV. I was very disappointed because the author did not identify the Director. A sequel is great, but to lead someone through a complicated story, and not answer the most significant question, is not. Perhaps he reveals the identity of the Director in his next book. I won't know because I won't read it. The story elements -- suspense, interconnecting events, some of the characters -- make this a fairly good book. Political thrillers have a strong audience. For me, this was just a 3 star book.
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