The Assassin

How can you not love another Clive Cussler book, especially one with Isaac Bell and supporting characters? That said, the story starts off rather vanilla for Isaac’s reputation, seemingly somewhat out of order in Isaac’s chronology of life. And you think, wow, has Clive Cussler lost his touch allowing us to figure it all out early on? But with this episode, Isaac tasked to protect John D Rockefeller, you get an amazing view into that gentleman’s life, not to mention quite an adventure. Hang in there, Isaac rises to the occasion as usual, and there are some unexpected turns that are surprising, even in their unexpectedness. And that chronology issue…it gets cleared up as well. Oh how I love the Isaac Bell stories…and Captain Juan Cabrillo along with the crew of the Oregon…next story up, hopefully.

For those who need to be warned, some spoilers in this review. If you have been reading the series,you know Isaac married Marion, whom he met and fell in love with in 1906, right after the San Francisco earthquake.
This story is a few years prior when he was a bachelor,with an eye for the ladies. I mention this because he is enamoured by 2 sisters, both beautiful in their own ways but one has a special skill which takes him awhile to figure out.
We get an introduction to Rockefeller, head of Standard Oil, and learn how he was trying to become a philanthropist, in his latter years of life. He was a self made man of means. He earned every penny of his wealth, but had no guilt in how he did his take-overs of rival companies, he just made the deal.
One particular person, whose company had been taken over, came to work for Rockefeller, but secretly planned to destroy Rockefeller, using assassinations of key personnel. We find out that this person was the father of the two sisters that Bell was enamoured with.
During the research for the sharp shooter, it was found out that the best sharp shooter in the nation, who had received a special medal from Theodore Roosevelt plus a personal letter, had left the military shortly after. The Van Dorn agency tried to get a description of this person and all they were able to get was a vague description of a slim short man with gray/hazel eyes.
Isaac begins to realize something when he captures the father of the two sisters and finds out that the assassin was not the long lost brother but the sister. Did I mention that both women wore their hair in what is now called a pixie cut. Most women in the early 1900’s wore their hair long.
This was a great read. I especially loved the descriptions of the areas in Westchester, New York as they were in that time period before all the development of this time, a hundred years later.

I always enjoy a Clive Cussler novel. I was not disappointed with this one, although it was a bit different from what I was expecting.

The Van Dorn Detective Agency is on the case again. This time it appears that someone is killing off people involved with John D. Rockefeller and the Standard Oil Company, or better yet, killing off the competition to make it look as though Standard Oil is killing their competitors.

Isaac Bell is on the case with all of the characters that we have come to love in the previous 7 books of this series. Isaac and the Van Dorn Agency is working for the Corporations Commission to try and determine if Standard Oil is using unfair business practices. But as the death toll mounts they come to realize that there is something more dasterdly at play here.

Isaac Bell teams up with J.D. Rockefeller to try and figure out what is going on. He also though runs into two sisters who happen to be a reporter and a suffragette. The two sisters are stunning. They also happen to be the children of one of Rockefeller’s former competitor’s who has become an associate of Standard Oil. How will that come in to play?

My only disappointment, and maybe I remember this wrong, but Isaac has a love interest in the first books that seems to have disappeared. I will have to do a bit of research to remind myself of what happened.

You won’t be disappointed. The book will draw you in and provide you with several evenings of entertainment as you read.

Enjoy!

At the turn of the 20th century, oil was king. Led by such men as John D. Rockefeller, oil became a commodity that men fought and killed over. Rockefeller, head of the Standard Oil monopoly, is being investigated by Isaac Bell of the Van Dorn detective agency. What begins as an investigation turns to murder when a hired assassin starts targeting opponents of Standard Oil, many of them independents hoping to break Standard’s grip on the oil industry.

Isaac and the others from the Van Dorn agency are soon looking for the assassin. Their pursuit will lead them to Kansas, Texas, and across the Atlantic Ocean to Russia. Meanwhile, the assassin is still at large. Having had his best witness killed by the assassin, it is up to Isaac and his fellow detectives to solve the mystery before the assassin destroys Standard Oil and John D. Rockefeller himself.

I’m a big fan of the Isaac Bell series by Clive Cussler, and “The Assassin” in a fine new entry to the series. As with the earlier books in the series, Cussler concentrates his story during an actual time frame in American history. The story is exciting, and the characters are well-developed. There are many twists and turns along the way, and the reader must pay close attention to the story.

I highly recommend this fine book. Fans of Isaac Bell will surely enjoy “The Assassin”.

Give this book a big miss. Without doubt, the worst Clive Cussler book I have ever read. The narrative did not flow, poor descriptions and short jumpy sentences. I wonder just how much of this book Clive Cussler actually wrote himself. It seems nowadays that he comes up with an idea for a book and then asks someone else to write the story.All the recent books are a lot shorter than earlier ones and I will now be thinking long and hard about purchasing any future releases.

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