Sunday, June 03, 2007

The Mark of the Assassin by Daniel Silva

The Mark of the Assassin by Daniel Silva
Mystery


CIA agent Michael Osbourne is a counter terrorism expert. When a plane is shot down off the east coast of the country, it is suspected that the Swords of Gaza, a group that Michael has been following for a while, is responsible. At the same time, the vice president, some lawyers in the Washington area, and a missile defense contractor benefit from the recent "terrorist" attack. Michael starts to wonder who the real terrorists are, and travels to London and Cairo to find out. Soon he has an assassin who murdered his girlfriend many years ago in his sights. But the assassin has been contracted to kill Michael so who is hunting who?
This book was definitely thrilling and quite the page turner. Although at first I was a little confused because so many characters were introduced so quickly. I don't really understand why Silva introduced characters that died a couple pages after they were introduced. Really, why bother? It just serves to confuse.
I thought this book was quite relevant to the current situation of the world today, with tensions in the middle east and distrust of the government. This includes the ending, which was not satisfactory from a readers point of view, but is quite like what would happen in real life.
As for the characters, it was easy to like the ones you were supposed to, and dislike the ones you weren't supposed to like. I quite enjoyed Michael and I saw that Silva has more books with him as the main character.
This was a great book to read on the train because it kept me awake and turning the pages!


Rating:

(4/5)

4 comments:

Susan Helene Gottfried said...

I have this on the TBR, myself (really, what's not there anymore?). Maybe the characters were returning from previous installments of the series? Just a thought; I'm not sure if this is part of Silva's series or not.

Lauren said...

I'm pretty sure this is the first book in the Michael Osbourne series. And the characters were of no consequence. *shrugs* I dunno. Page filler? lol

Snoskred said...

Hi, it's Snoskred here. I've recently become a blogging chick and have set myself a challenge to comment on as many Blogging Chick blogs as I can. So that's why I'm here. ;)

A Mom and Daughter book review blog? Brilliant concept, I love it. I went back through all the books to see if I'd read any that you'd reviewed and sadly I had not. ;( But I did identify some that I should read now that I've read your review.

Also, really glad I found the blogger templates link at the bottom of your site, I'm looking for something new and some of those are great. Overall, very nice blog! Well done. :)

Snoskred
http://snoskred.blogspot.com/

Kelly said...

Hi Lauren and Dana,

My name is Kelly Blewett and I'm with the publicity department of WaterBrook Press (a division of Random House). Would you like to participate in a blog tour we're organizing for one of our books, a historical fiction title called A Tendering in the Storm?

A Tendering in the Storm, based on a historical figure of the 1800s, follows the spirited and intelligent Emma Giesy, who achieves her goal of separating her family from the repressive religious community in which she grew up. But unexpected and dire consequences leave her family—and her faith—struggling to survive.

Let me know by Monday, June 18 if you’re interested in participating. I’ll provide a complimentary copy of the book, so please include your mailing address in the reply.

Thanks,
Kelly Blewett
kblewett@randomhouse.com