The Assassins

by Gayle Lynds

Overview

Six master assassins—each a legend in the dark corners of international espionage—band together to steal a fortune from the middle of a war zone. But the mission goes tragically wrong, and they retreat into the shadows.

Now THE ASSASSINS are back.

Former military spy Judd Ryder is walking to his D.C. home when he spots a man coming out of his row house, who looks like Ryder and is wearing his clothes. As Ryder slows to follow, the imposter is killed in a hit-and-run that's no accident. Was the man the intended victim, or was it Ryder himself? Soon Ryder learns that the key to the mysterious events of the past and to his double's murder is an infamous Cold War assassin, the Carnivore. Two of the last people to see the Carnivore were Ryder and CIA trainee Eva Blake, and someone is using them to lure him out.

From Washington D.C. to Marrakech and Baghdad, the assassins wage a final battle—this time against one another—fighting for their reputations and Saddam Hussein's long-missing billion-dollar fortune. In the end, only one can be left standing. Caught in the crossfire, Judd and Eva go on the run while desperately unraveling the tangled past and battling not only for their lives, but for their destinies.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466847385
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/30/2015
Series:	The Judd Ryder Books , #2
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	190,346
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

GAYLE LYNDS is the bestselling, award-winning author of several international espionage thrillers including Masquerade, The Last Spymaster, and The Book of Spies. A member of the Association for Intelligence Officers, she is co-founder (with David Morrell) of the ITW (International Thriller Writers). She lives in Maine.
Gayle Lynds is the bestselling, award-winning author of several international espionage thrillers, including Masquerade, The Coil, and The Last Spymaster. A member of the Association for Intelligence Officers, she is cofounder (with David Morrell) of ITW (International Thriller Writers). She lives in Santa Barbara.

Editorial Reviews

04/27/2015
Bestseller Lynds (The Book of Spies) starts more strongly than she finishes this romance-laced suspense novel. In Baghdad in April, 2003, six international assassins, to whom Saddam Hussein owes $12 million, are worried that they’ll never get paid after the American invaders confiscate all the dictator’s assets. So they steal a limestone tablet worth $12 million from a museum, but the artifact ends up broken into multiple pieces, and the murderous crew’s British member, Burleigh Morgan, is blown up in his car after he attempts to reassemble it. Meanwhile, former military intelligence operative Judd Ryder returns home to Washington, D.C., where he finds that someone is impersonating him and soon witnesses his double’s murder. Judd teams with apprentice CIA spy Eva Blake (“of the long red hair and the cobalt-blue eyes that could pierce him to the soul”) to figure out what’s going on. A routine plot and stock characters make this a lesser effort for Lynds. Agent: Lisa Erbach Vance, Aaron M. Priest Literary Agency. (June)

Publishers Weekly

Everything a reader could possibly want … will surely stand with the year's best thrillers.” —David Baldacci

“Rich settings, beautifully crafted characters, and a compulsively readable storyline.... Outstanding.” —Douglas Preston

“A perfect piece of thrilling entertainment.” —Steve Berry

“A master class in suspense” —Lisa Gardner

“Terrific local color, fascinating historical details, and an insider's knowledge of spycraft.... As fast as a sniper's bullet” —Robert Crais

“Real-world politics and ripped-from-the-headlines authenticity in a roller-coaster of action and suspense” —James Rollins

“A classic last-man-standing story of deceit and betrayal” —Nelson DeMille

“Delivers on everything it promises: devious players, shifting alliances, and no one you should trust.” —Brad Meltzer

“Cold War thriller writing at its best.” —Peter James

“A furiously wild ride. I loved it!” —Catherine Coulter

From the Publisher

06/15/2015
Former CIA agent Judd Ryder sees a man leave his townhouse: he looks like Ryder and he's wearing Ryder's clothes. The man is killed in a hit-and-run that's clearly no accident. Did the driver think the victim was Ryder? A complicated trail of clues reveals that the key to this event lies in an infamous theft years before when six assassins entered Saddam Hussein's palace during the Iraq War and stole a cuneiform clay tablet. Now someone's murdering the assassins one by one. It's an insider, but who and why? The answer is far-fetched but readers won't mind, getting there is what's fun. VERDICT Olen Steinhauer it's not, but spy thriller lovers will enjoy Lynds's tenth romp (after The Book of Spies). [See Prepub Alert, 12/15/14.]—DK

Library Journal