Assassin

Alex Hawke, Book 2

By: Ted Bell

Narrated by: John Shea

Length: 14 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

In an elegant palazzo on the Grand Canal, an American ambassador's tryst turns deadly. In the seamy underbelly of London, a pub-crawling killer is on the loose. And in a storybook chapel nestled in the Cotswolds, a marriage made in heaven turns to hell on earth.

Isolated incidents? Or links in a chain of events hurtling towards catastrophe? So begins Assassin, the tour de force thriller that heralds the return of every terrorist's worst nightmare: Alex Hawke.

A shadowy figure known as the Dog is believed to be the ruthless terrorist who is systematically and savagely assassinating American diplomats and their families around the globe. As the deadly toll mounts inexorably, Hawke, along with former NYPD cop and Navy SEAL Stokely Jones, is called upon by the U.S. government to launch a search for the assassin behind the murders.

Hawke, who "makes James Bond look like a 'slovenly, dull-witted clockpuncher'" (Kirkus Reviews), is soon following a trail that leads back to London in the go-go 90s, when Arab oil money fueled lavish, and sometimes fiendish, lifestyles. Other murky clues point to the Florida Keys, where a vicious killer hides behind the gates of a fabled museum, and to a remote Indonesian island where a madman tinkers with strains of a deadly virus and slyly bides his time.

Hawke must call upon resources deep within himself. He must enter a race against time to stop a cataclysmic attack on America's most populous cities and avenge the inexplicable and horrific crime that has left him devastated.

Take another thrill ride with Alex Hawke.

©2004 Theodore A. Bell (P)2005 Brilliance Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Assassin is the most highly imaginative thriller to come along in a long while. Ted Bell can really, really write." (James Patterson)

"Whether the novel is taken as a grown-up boy's book or a modern thriller, readers will be caught in the whirlwind of action and find themselves having a grand old time." (Publishers Weekly)

"Like Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, this series is a mix of over-the-top thrills and grounded characterizations. The mix is well served by Shea's efforts." (AudioFile)

Another great Hawke adventure read by John Shea.

John Shea makes the Ted Bell stories come alive. He does a amazing job with his accents and voice inflections to make each character stand out from each other. He uses other techniques to simulate radio transmissions and others to help the story come alive.

Starts slow end Intense!

I agree with others here. It starts out very slow and was incredibly predictable but the last 10 chapters or so kept getting more and more intense.

loved it. Great story line.

The author did a great job integrating previous story lines into this story. Great variety of characters.

good listen

I love the accent of the reader the characters were very believable I enjoyed it very much

long-winded but ok

so much movement with out purpose.
hard to follow exactly who is involved with whom.

Loved it

Could not put it down. Good read! Good character development. I was surprised the book was 20 years old.

Good Yarn

I couldn't acquire the first title in the Hawke series, so I began Assassin hoping for something as gripping as other genre serials such as Vince Flynn's, Alex Berensen's, Andrew Peterson's or John Gilstrap's. If Assassin is accurate harbinger of what to expect with the remaining novels, I can expect to be modestly entertained, but not gripped. Also some my enjoyment arises from the authors constant development of the ridiculous like a Batman story, but unfortunately with the obvious intention of being straight-laced thriller. Except for the tights, Hawke is very much like Batman. He's extremely rich: apparently one of the richest men in England and has ample resources tools and sophisticated toys to fight evil; his parents were murdered by villains when he was a child; and the family's butler undertook raising him as a major role. But Batman wouldn't want to encounter his Lordship Hawke, since Hawke's hand-to-hand combat skills are unrivaled, he can out wrestle a killer 450 lb Sumo wrestler even while enduring the pain of broken ribs.

Thank God the U.S. President is his buddy, because even though he has the world's largest spy agency, strongest, largest and most mobile military in the world, and countless operatives, agents and spys, the U.S. is dependent on Hawke and his butler to save the world from terrorist villains. If you can put up with that- Ican- then like me, I think you'll find this book, and hopefully-series- entertaining enough. I do hope that author tightens up his writing a bit, there is far too much unnecessary descriptive narrative-not unlike a literary student trying to stretch a short story into full novel. Also a little disappointing is the thesis behind the villain's motivations. Most writers in this genre leverage social/political truths and history and expound in a unique direction. The Geopolitical accuracy rivals 4th grader's understanding. Another example of ridiculousness is Assassin's sole mad scientist. He's apparently a world class nuclear scientist and engineer cable of single-handedly developing a mini-nuclear devices that exceed or rival those of the U.S. while also developing other weapon's systems beyond the technical prowess of the West's combined private and political resources. On top of that ,It turns out that he's also a cutting edge bio-engineer as well.

Predictable and boring.

I'll give another vote to the narrator.

The characters are cliche and one dimensional. If Bell were a student he would be accused of plaguarising Ian Fleming's bond. The story was unbelievable and predictable and at times just made no sense. He gave entirely too much back story to the villain. As an 8 hour book it would have been simply unoriginal. The extra several hours only serves to bring it down from there.

Narration makes The story

I loved everything about this book a good suspenseful story that kept me up reading long after bed time. The narration was truly fantastic, the narration makes the story both more real and more entertaining making it a delightful read

Great voice for a pretty bland story

Any additional comments?

Basically, this book is just too over the top for me. Alex Hawke is just too much for me as well as many of the characters. The dialogue is super cheesy at times and Ted Bell spends a lot of time describing the exotic settings, which I personally don't care that much about. The voice-acting is the only reason I listened to about a third of this book but I couldn't bring myself to finish. Probably won't read another Alex Hawke novel.