Rating: Summary: What Clancy used to be Review: Exciting, entertaining and concise. Unlike Clancy who waste the lives of too many trees - Daniel Silva trims the fat and cuts to the chase. Besides his writing style, I also liked the printing style used by the publisher. It is easy on the eyes and the ragged pages makes it easy to turn.
Rating: Summary: Disappointing after The Unlikely Spy Review: The Unlikely Spy was an exceptional thriller. I felt I had found a major new author of spy thrillers (I haven't given up on him yet) and waited eagerly for his next book. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a stinker. I must say, though, that despite the incredibility of the plot and the cardboard characters, his ability to describe places and to build atmosphere came through brilliantly from time to time. For my own sake, I hope his third book is at least half as good as his first book. I'll be waiting. END
Rating: Summary: OKAY -- Would make a good "made for TV" movie but-- Review: Overall, I enjoyed reading it but it is nothing special -- it was one of those "nothing else to read at the moment situations. "Bad men controlling poor President" stories are getting a little old -- and it reminded me of several other spy novels I've read. Isn't there an Alistair MacLean out there somewhere? (No, it isn't Clancy!)
Rating: Summary: Good spy story but terrible narration Review: "The Mark of the Assassin" by Silva on CD is a good story and excellent beach "reading." But I almost wish I had purchased the book itself because although the story is good, Frank Runyeon's narration of the story is terrible. I will never again purchase a story on CD that shows him as the reader. His diction is good, but his intonation and emphasis are terrible...to the point that it is extremely distracting to the story content.
Rating: Summary: You call this a thriller?! Review: The problem of this novel is that the author did not get a tight grip of everything, wasted lot of pages on describing the relationship of Michael Osbourne and his wife; the President was sufferig a low rating in the poll and not popular(what a repetive bore). Besides, the alocations of the whereabouts were also quite stereotyped. Why a terrorist group would always send a fax first to a guy worked in Times, London, and then it had to be passed along again to MI5, and then, inevitably repeatively passed along to CIA? Don't understand why should we have to read so many tasteless yet so detailed blabblahblah, man? This book and its author just gave me an impression of the mixtured wannabe of F. Forsyth(The Icon) and J. Archer(The 11th Commandment)--only regretfully worse--and my, my, my, these three books are so alike. The other problem of this book is that the author has used lot of straight-ahead sentences almost in every page but failed to be improved by his editors, making the read even more tiresome and bored. For instance, the last paragraph on P.72, only the first sentence sounded quite promising, "The President looked very exhausted." Then, all of the following sentences begun with a "He had..., he had..., he turned..., he had..." There is no way to call this novel a thriller since it was so loose, forcing me to read it like a 3rd-party moron chewing a candle off, then spitting out the tasteless tidbits hopelessly.
Rating: Summary: kept my attention but felt it had a weak ending Review: I have not read "The Unlikely Spy" but will now purchase the book. Yes, I agree with many other reviewers that it does bring to mind the characters of many of our elected officials; and, yes, it makes you think of the tragic TWA crash. So what! It merely is someone's ideas and beliefs. I, too, have no idea who The Director in this book really is....and, it does have a weak ending. But, I still would recommend it to all readers who enjoy a good thriller!
Rating: Summary: SPLENDID BOOK!! Review: From the introduction, I was unable to put the book down.Mr. Silva is a great story teller. The various locations the story takes place is described in so much detail you feel as if you're watching a movie or you're physically there yourself. Great suspense, surprises... Great BOOK!! I will recommend this book to everyone!!
Rating: Summary: Strong start but fizzled out Review: The start of the book was promising, indeed. After about 100 pages, though, the writing fizzles. While this is by no means a boring book, it lacks the expert research and background knowledge of a Clancy book. Silva simply gets many details about actual intelligence organizations wrong. He still manages to pull out a quite interesting read. One thing though: how many "Harvard-trained" lawyers and cigarette smokers can fit into one book??
Rating: Summary: Beach reading Review: Can you say, "a book wanting to be a summer movie?" It has all the trappings. Fast moving story, gratuitous sex, plenty of characters, politics, action, violence, and exotic locations. What it lacks is character development that makes you care what happens to any of these people. (And, lots of unlikely situations and responses to those situations.) But, hey!, if you're sitting on a beach and you don't want to engage your brain...it'll wile a few hours away quite nicely.
Rating: Summary: Going to make a great movie Review: The Unlikely Spy was great--The Mark of the Assassin even better. A definite page-turner. I could not put it down, so I didn't. I am going to add Daniel Silva to my list of authors to watch for.
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