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The Mark of the Assassin

The Mark of the Assassin

List Price: $7.99
Your Price: $7.19
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: pretty good
Review: Less than satisfying ending, but worth reading if you like spy books.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A very good thriller.
Review: I read Daniel Silva's first novel _The_Unlikely_Spy_ and loved it. This second effort was not quite as good, but well worth reading. The element that made _The_Unlikely_Spy_ so enthralling is fundamentally missing here: the historical context. Since _Mark_of_the_Assassin_ is set in modern times, there is no equivalent here to the depiction of wartime London.

However Silva does have a knack for transporting the reader, in this case geographically rather than temporally. His settings in France, England and the US genuinely make you feel like you are there.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: EXCELLENT THRILLER WITH FASCINATING CHARACTERS
Review: I JUST FINISHED "THE MARK OF THE ASSASSIN AND FOUND THE NOVEL TO BE BOTH THRILLING AND EXILERATING. THE PLOT IS SIMILIAR TO LUDLEM'S BUT MUCH BETTER WRITTEN. I DO HAVE ONE QUESTION FOR SOMEONE WHO HAS READ THE BOOK. WHICH PERSON IN THE NOVEL IS THE CHARACTER " THE "DIRECTOR"? I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THE BOOK TO ADVENTURE/SPY READERS.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Those Nasty Republicans are At it, AGAIN
Review: What a disappointment. Not only is this NOT as good as "The Unlikely Spy," Silva proves himself to be yet another politically motivated author who uses the celebrity status gained from a past book to advance his political agenda. Just look at the cast of characters: There's the President's manipulative chief of staff (just like Ronald Regan's Don Regan); there's the telegenic dimwitted Republican President who is the puppet and tool of the manipulative chief of staff (just as Ronald Reagan was portrayed); there's the evil First Lady who is controlling things behind the scenes (a la Nancy Reagan); there's the all-knowing media on the side of "good" versus "evil" (the Washington Post); and, of course, there's big business which is up to its collective eyeballs in "evil" because it wants to build and profit from a space shield (i.e., a not-so-subtle reference to Reagan's Star Wars). There's even a pair of terrorist killers who are portrayed as two nice people who are in love, victims of terrible childhoods. And, well, you get the idea. There's even a "Vince Foster Suicide." One of the immediate tipoffs to Silva's political views comes in his statements that (paraphrase) the previous Administration had a Cabinet as diverse as America yet this Administration had chosen Cabinet members solely from the Good Old White Boys Club. This transparant reference is to Clinton vs. Any Republican President. On top of this, the plot is tedious, predictable, and SLOW. You want to scream out on page 100, "Yo, Dan-O, we've got this figured out already. Enough. Just get on with it, will you?" Yet, despite all these problems, Silva has promise. I'm looking for a return to the style he set in his first effort, "The Unlikely Spy." As for this one, save your money.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the best ever written
Review: This was one of the best books I have ever read. Silva keeps the book going and adds the definite air of intrigue to the plot. A must read.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Damn Good Novel
Review: Mark of the Assassin is a powerful suspense thriller that begins on page one and grips you all the way to the end. By comparison to other authors (Tom Clancy, John Grisham,) Daniel Silva has found a form that keeps the pages turning and the bed lamp burning. Overall, read this novel. It is worth the money!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Derivative, contrived, improbable, and predictable.
Review: Readers of "The Unlikely Spy" will be disappointed by Silva's latest work. Its derivative, contrived, and improbable with a tedious subplot about the protagonist's wife's infertility problems. Wouldn't even recommend this book for a long plane ride.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: After THE UNLIKELY SPY, this was disappointing.
Review: This book failed my 100-page test: if it doesn't start moving by page 100, I will put it down. Life's too short, and there are millions of books to read. I had expected great things, since THE UNLIKELY SPY was masterful. But THE MARK OF THE ASSASSIN clearly did not receive the same thought, attention and time that Mr. Silva put into his first book. It looks like the puiblisher rushed this one out as quickly as possible. The plot is obvious even to a child, and by page 110 Mr. Silva even tells us who is behind the downing of the plane. So we're expected to read the rest of the book just to find out how the bad guys are caught, or because we like the characters. Unfortunately, the characters are, without exception, all very tired cliches: the dimwitted but good-looking President who is controlled by an evil and manipulative Chief of Staff (Republicans, of course); the brilliant, rich and workaholic Harvard Law School graduate (two of them, actually); the greedy, rich and bloodthirsty defense contractor; the right-wing Israeli spy chief; the left-wing, pacifist Presidential challenger; the disillusioned ex-KGB officer who is now a corrupt, Russian arms dealer; and, of course, the brilliant, multi-lingual and rich (conveniently through an inheritance, of course) CIA officer who risks it all largely because of his obsession about his first love, a rich artist who was murdered, implausibly, by the same shadowy ueber-killer who's behind the new international crisis. P-L-E-A-S-E. Give me just one original character like Mr. Vicary from THE UNLIKELY SPY. Readers seeking real quality, like an old John Le Carre story, will not want to spend their money or time on this one. But by all means, do read THE UNLIKELY SPY. That's going to be a classic.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Could of been better
Review: "Mark of the assassin" Started with the potential to be a great book, but slip somewhere down the line. It was like the author either stoped caring or he didn't know where to go with it. I was highly disappointed in this novel.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Page-turner
Review: "The Mark of the Assassin" is a good suspense read. Anyone who has read the synopsis (or the book) can tell right away that it is without a doubt based on the crash of flight 800 off Long Island. (And you know what controversy there was/is over what caused that crash). Well, that real life tragedy is the obvious source of this fictional story. And it is used well. "Assassin" is one of the best thrillers I've read since THE SHAPE by Craig Furnas (also listed on Amazon.com). Get "Assassin" for your summer read. Read it by the pool. Read it on the beach. But don't read it on an airplane!!!


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