The Mark of the Assassin

by Daniel Silva

Overview

CIA Agent Michael Osbourne stars in this suspenseful series from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Gabriel Allon novels.

When a commercial airliner is blown out of the sky off the east coast, the CIA scrambles to find the perpetrators. A body is discovered near the crash site with three bullets to the face: the calling card of a shadowy international assassin. Only agent Michael Osbourne has seen the markings before—on a woman he once loved.

Now, it’s personal for Osbourne. Consumed by his dark obsession with the assassin, he’s willing to risk his family, his career, and his life—to settle a score…

A PEOPLE PAGE-TURNER OF THE WEEK

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451209313
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	09/02/2003
Series:	Michael Osbourne Series , #1
Pages:	528
Sales rank:	132,632
Product dimensions:	7.46(w) x 10.88(h) x 1.13(d)

About the Author

Daniel Silva is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Unlikely Spy, The Mark of the Assassin, The Marching Season, and the Gabriel Allon series, including The Kill Artist, The English Assassin, The Confessor, A Death in Vienna, Prince of Fire, The Messenger, The Secret Servant, Moscow Rules, The Defector, The Rembrandt Affair, Portrait of a Spy, The Fallen Angel, The English Girl, The Heist, The English Spy, The Black Widow, and House of Spies. His books are published in more than thirty countries and are bestsellers around the world.

Date of Birth:

1960

Place of Birth:

Michigan

Website:

http://www.danielsilvabooks.com

Read an Excerpt

October
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Mark of the Assassin"
by .
Copyright © 2003 Daniel Silva.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

A terrific thriller…one of the best-drawn fictional assassins since The Day of the Jackal.”—The San Francisco Examiner

“A must-read.”—Entertainment Weekly
 
“Split-second suspense by an inventive ace of the genre.”—Newsday

“[A] fast-moving, bang-bang thriller.”—Los Angeles Daily News
 
“Compulsively enjoyable…Silva keeps the double-crosses moving at [a] frenzied clip.”—San Francisco Chronicle
 
“A taut spy thriller…Silva’s writing is clean, his characterizations pithy. And he keeps readers guessing.”—New York Post

“A strong, driving pace...Its two main characters cannot be denied.”—Chicago Tribune

From the Publisher

When CIA agent Michael Osbourne is sent to investigate the tragic bombing of an airliner, he notices the mark of a notorious assassin on one of the dead: three bullet holes to the face. Now it's up to Osbourne to seek out the killer's employer, as well as the savage man who has evaded Osbourne for years.

bn.com

For his second thriller, Silva turns from World War II (The Unlikely Spy) to a modern intelligence milieu with corrupt government officials and wealthy special interests. The title character, October, is a contract master assassin released by the KGB 30 years ago. CIA agent Michael Osbourne, a terrorism expert, saw October kill his girlfriend and badly wants to capture him. Then the investigation of a missile-downed airliner off the coast of Long Island reveals a body with three shots to the faceOctober's signature. Osbourne's need to attend to his marriage while trying to stop October's completion of a multiple-hit contract and to uncover those financing it lead to a violent denouement. With concise, vivid character sketches, Silva weaves a swiftly paced, internationally tangled plot. Fans of Ludlum and Forsyth will look for this Literary Guild selection.-- Louise Saylor, formerly with Eastern Washington Univ,. Libs., Cheney

Library Journal

...[A] must-read for conspiracy buffs...

Entertainment Weekly

Silva, whose debut, The Unlikely Spy (1997), put the WWII thriller back on the map, brings the genre up to date with a vengeance in an exhilarating story that roots razzle-dazzle espionage heroics in contemporary political headlines. The Islamic fundamentalist group Sword of Gaza has apparently claimed responsibility for the Stinger missile attack that brought down TransAtlantic Flight 002, and the President, lagging in the polls a month before the next election, has responded by recommending a costly new antimissile defense system. But wiser heads at the CIA don't believe that Sword of Gaza shot down the plane. Michael Osbourne in particular has reason to remember the signature wounds in the face of the dead terrorist found near the Stinger launcher, since years ago his lover was killed in the same distinctive way. Now that Michael and his wife Elizabeth are trying for their last chance to have children, he's called away from her side to go after his bˆte noir, the freelance assassin dubbed October, who all but pointed the Stinger at Flight 002, and who's now agreed to execute all the accomplices to the deed. Michael would be even more worried if he knew about the troubles he had much closer to homeþfor example, the Society for International Development and Cooperation, those warmongers whose tentacles reach high up in the Agency and the White House itself. The closer Michael gets to October, who's now taken out a Society contract to liquidate Michael, the greater the danger to himself, his wife, andþthanks to a gleefully inventive series of plot twistsþthe American political system as we know it. TWA Flight 800, Star Wars, Whitewater, Vince Fosterþthey're allhere, together with enough soothingly familiar spy stuff (the beautiful killer, the triple-cross, the conspiratorial military-industrial complex) to wring a sigh of pleasure and recognition from the most rabid paranoiac.

Kirkus Reviews