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The Assassin: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Stephen Coonts
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy Used: $3.74
You Save: $23.21 (86%)
New (49) Used (46) Collectible (1) from $3.74
Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 53144
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 352
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0312323573
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780312323578
ASIN: 0312323573
Publication Date: August 5, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Good used condition.
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Product Description
The headlines only reveal half the truth. Here’s the real story. . . .
Abu Qasim, the ruthless and cunning Al Qaeda leader who nearly succeeded in blowing up a meeting of the G-8 in Paris, has escaped from the grasp of the Americans and is plotting his next move. A small band of powerful men, highly placed leaders of industry and politics in the West, have decided they need to target and destroy the terrorist and his inner circle before he can strike again. When a prominent Russian dissident is poisoned in London, however, it’s clear that there’s a very dangerous leak within the ranks of the Westerners, and that Abu Qasim has turned the tables on his rivals---it is now he who is pursuing, and his aim is to kill.
Admiral Jake Grafton dispatches special agent Tommy Carmellini to infiltrate the plot. He tracks the gorgeous and seductive Marisa Petrou, a Frenchwoman who may be Qasim’s daughter and who has her own reasons for wanting him alive---or wishing him dead. Qasim, meanwhile, has a trick up his sleeve---one that he’s been planning for years.
Who is behind the methodical assassinations of the wealthy and powerful Western vigilante team? Will Abu Qasim slip the noose once again? In this pulse-pounding thriller, Tommy Carmellini must put a stop to a master of terror before he unleashes even more death.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 17 more reviews...
 Candid Fiction August 8, 2008
St. George
10 out of 16 found this review helpful
This represents the first novel by Coonts that I have read. On the objective side, I am not a fan of changing narratives. I believe it adversely affects the fluidity of the reading. The dominant character is done in first person. He is a young intelligence operative who muses through thoughts that sound as though they came from an older person(say someone of Stephen Coonts age).
Criticisms aside, the writing is very good and the suspense is even better. I admire, even gravitate to writers that do not stand on politically correct ceremony. This book is a candid, no apologies look at a religion that is responsible for many of the world's woes. The blending of real-life characters,(would-be dictator Putin), as well as real-life events(the poisoning of a Russain operative) with Coonts fiction creates a more realistic story line.
I would not consider it a waste of time or resources to read other work from the author. This, in fact, would probably make for an entertaining movie. However, Hollywood is more interested in trying to make the intelligence agencies out as the bad guys. Some of us are chanting the media mantras in goose-step fashion, homeland security compromises my civil rights, or "Change we can believe in".
It is our common human struggle and our peripheral distractions that marginalize the insidious lunitic fringe and when our distractions include Hollywood fantasy, we are all the more ripe for manipulation. On the fiction side(because art does imitate life), it is novelists such as; Silva, Thor, Rosenberg and Coonts that will help to move the discussion back where it was just after 9/11. So if the movie producers are interested in reality(and profit) then explore the likes of this novel and its ilk.
 Peculiar book at best November 9, 2008
R. Horton (Chicago, IL)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
I'm a fan of Coonts and I've tried to like this book. It gets off to a great start and the overall concept is good, but the writing takes an experimental twist that I can't warm up to. The reader is in the dark for far too much of the narrative.
Jake Grafton, whom Coonts's readers have come to know over many novels, is a distant and cold enigma. Tommy Carmellini is presented in the first person while the rest of the book is in the third person. Characters are introduced just long enough to make us want to know them better (a sniper team in the Hindu Kush, an undercover agent hiding in Rome) but then killed off before we develop sufficient attachment for their deaths to mean anything.
I tried. This one just left me cold.
Excellent entertainment August 14, 2008
Timothy R. Adams (Chicago, Illinois United States)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
I found the book engrossing with very likeable and familiar characters, and an intriguing plot that precipitates from the real world. Coonts' skill with literary device and plot development make this one of the most interesting action thrillers that I have read recently. I recommend this and all books by this author. Thank you, Mr. Coonts.
Action Packed Adventure! August 15, 2008
Melvin Hunt (Cleveland,, Texas United States)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Owen Winchester is killed by a roadside bomb while serving in Iraq. His father Huntington Winchester a billionaire, decides to retaliate against
the forces of terrorism. He forms a vigilante group composed of wealthy friends to combat the forces of terrorism, Simon Cairnes an American banker,Oleg Tchernychenko a Russian oilman,Wolfganf Zetsche a German shipping tycoon,Jerry Hay Smith an American journalist,Rolf Gnadinger a Swiss banker,and Isolde Petrou a French banker pool their resources to
wage war against terrorists.Winchester asks the President for the name of
someone the lead this vigilante army. The President sends Jake Grafton.
Grafton assembles Special Forces,and other soldiers to make up this group.
Their number one target is Abu Qasim. Abu Qasim learns the names of the business leaders who are after him. Qasim starts killing business leaders and Grafton starts killing terrorists.This turns into a worldwide battle.
The action goes until the end. Grafton is joined in battle by Tommy Carmellini. This is a very exciting book that you should read,
It's fiction... August 29, 2008
John Bowes (Oxford, MA USA)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
but tough to swallow. Our hero survives too many times to be credible. If our security is this easily breached, it would be over by now.
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