The Assassin

Rating:
Summary: Painful to read
Review: "The Assassin", one of the yearly technothrillers by R. Karl Largent published by Leisure, is not worth a reader's time. I reserve one star ratings to books that I cannot finish. This is one of those as I stopped after 135 pages, about one third of the book.

The premise, the sudden death of Iraqi tribes and their livestock due to a mysterious new germ warfare agent, seemed interesting. The novel began well by setting up and explaining the premise. However, once the hero is drafted to get to the bottom of the situation, things quickly went downhill. His ex-wife is trying to rekindle the "good old days" and when he is whisked away to investigate the deaths, she flips. Why is this character even present? Maybe she served a purpose later in the book, but I doubt it.

There is not "non-stop action" as another reviewer mentioned. There are occasional moments, but not enough to keep the reader entertained. There were a number of sections (imposter conversing with country leader, for example) which were simply boring. Maybe I'll finish this novel one day and adjust my rating accordingly, but I doubt it. Stick with Largent's horror novels as they are better works.

Rating:
Summary: Painful to read
Review: "The Assassin", one of the yearly technothrillers by R. Karl Largent published by Leisure, is not worth a reader's time. I reserve one star ratings to books that I cannot finish. This is one of those as I stopped after 135 pages, about one third of the book.

The premise, the sudden death of Iraqi tribes and their livestock due to a mysterious new germ warfare agent, seemed interesting. The novel began well by setting up and explaining the premise. However, once the hero is drafted to get to the bottom of the situation, things quickly went downhill. His ex-wife is trying to rekindle the "good old days" and when he is whisked away to investigate the deaths, she flips. Why is this character even present? Maybe she served a purpose later in the book, but I doubt it.

There is not "non-stop action" as another reviewer mentioned. There are occasional moments, but not enough to keep the reader entertained. There were a number of sections (imposter conversing with country leader, for example) which were simply boring. Maybe I'll finish this novel one day and adjust my rating accordingly, but I doubt it. Stick with Largent's horror novels as they are better works.

Rating:
Summary: About Time This Book Showed Up!
Review: I've known about this book for some time but it just showed up at Wal-Mart Christmas week (never saw it any place else). Anxious to read it, I've been a big fan of Mr. Largent since I read The Lake. At first I was reluctant to try the T.C. Bogner books but found I liked them after reading Red Ice. In this one, the story moves well and I like all the references to Turkey and the Turkish language. Since I lived in Turkey for 5 years, I can relate to a lot of the Turkish references he makes in the story. But I also found a few glaring misspellings that I am sure are merely typos the editor did not catch because he or she wouldn't know the difference in the first place! But there was one major technical error the editor should have caught and it had to do with the size of the bad guy's compound. I do not fault Mr. Largent as much for that as I am a writer also, and when you read and reread your work so many times, you tend to miss things that a second set of eyes should catch. There were also a few regular misspellings too (non-Turkish).

The reason I gave this work a 4 is for the technical errors/misspellings. Otherwise, I loved the story and found it quite engaging. The only other thing I didn't like was one of the characters that died in the end. I really wished the guy (let's just say a foreigner) had survived.

Great story, Mr. Largent. Time to kick your editor in the... well... never mind.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent book; nonstop action all the way
Review: This is another excellent novel by R. Karl Largent. Plenty of action from the beginning to the end. Recommended reading for action/spy readers.