- Hardcover: 384 pages
- Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur; St. Martin edition (August 2004)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 0312326378
- ISBN-13: 978-0312326371
- Product Dimensions: 21.1 x 14 x 3.6 cm
- Shipping Weight: 567 g
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: #2,122,845 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Details |
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
If anyone can keep the old-fashioned spy novel alive, it's British veteran Egleton (Cry Havoc; etc.). As usual, he starts things off with a bang: a leading London literary agent receives a tell-all memoir written by an intelligence officer who died in 1989 under highly suspicious circumstances. Before you can say "hot property," the London agent is murdered by two fake cops; the New York bookshop owner who came upon the manuscript is also violently offed; and Peter Ashton—a top SIS officer regarded by his enemies as a loose cannon and by his admirers as a brilliant field agent perhaps unsuited to a desk job—is put in charge. Ashton's wife not only has to help him protect the beautiful young American literary agent who was first offered the memoir but also has to cope with increasing suspicions that Jill Sheridan, Ashton's old flame who was well on her way to becoming head of SIS until she was forced to resign, is somehow behind all the book-related bloodshed. Egleton uses his obvious insider knowledge of intelligence antics to keep his story moving along briskly.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review
"Egleton uses his obvious insider knowledge of intelligence antics to keep his story moving along briskly."--Publishers Weekly
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
2.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
A distinctly un-thrilling thriller, Sep 8 2004
By Jerry Saperstein - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Assassination Day: A Peter Ashton Novel (Hardcover)
376 pages of convolution, an endless parade of characters, plot twists galore - and not very satisfying.An obnoxious young American woman comes to London to peddle the alleged memoirs of a former British spy. The publisher she is to meet with is murdered by a pair of nasties. Soon enough we are involved with the inner workings of several British police and intelligence agencies, a bunch of terrorists, a turncoat Brit nursing a grudge and the CIA. There is the grizzled old pro, Peter Ashton; the beleaguered director; the wannabes and perky analyst working her way up the ladder.
Not an awful read, but definitely pedestrian. The characters despite the earnest efforts of the author never take on any depth. The plot twists and turns, but not in a way that excites. No sitting on the edge of your seat here. The final scenes are hideously contrived and unbelievable.
In all, an un-thrilling thriller.
Jerry
1 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Falls Short, Aug 31 2004
By Thomas "atm" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Assassination Day: A Peter Ashton Novel (Hardcover)
As is en vogue these days this book is built around a fictional terrorist attack. Mr. Egleton while adroit at building layers of characters and keeping the reader alert was not as accomplished at coming up with a believable story line.While everyone understands that terrorism is deplorable Mr. Egleton says nothing about motive or rationale for the act of terrorism that the story is built around. He seems to leave it to the reader to understand that terrorist are insane and lack the ability to come up with rational interesting enough for us to want to investigate. And while this may be true it left the villains faceless. In a book like the one Mr. Egleton set out to write the description between the good team and the bad team needs to be balanced so that affinity can be developed for the heroes and hatred or dread can be developed for the enemy. Without this balance the story lacks momentum. We all hate terrorism and terrorists in general but Mr. Egleton gives us no basis for hating these specific terrorist aside from superficial references to their nationality.
One objective, if indeed it was his objective, that Mr. Egleton succeeds at is bringing in a truck load of characters and there by illustrating to the reader that it takes a legion of committed individuals to combat terrorism in the modern world. While this is something positive I will take away from the book the onslaught of characters added to the plodding of the plot and in the end detracted from the reading experience.
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