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Book: The Assassin

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  • Book: The Assassin

    Kirkus Reviews (Print)
    January 1, 2015, Thursday


    THE ASSASSIN

    SECTION: FICTION


    Cussler and Scott (The Bootlegger, 2014, etc.) send detective Isaac
    Bell on his eighth historical action-adventure, this time tackling the
    "Octopus," otherwise known as Standard Oil.The authors turn the time
    machine to 1905, giving Bell a chance to romance the beauties Edna,
    "deep as the ocean," and Nellie, who "dazzles like a kaleidoscope,"
    daughters of Bill Matters, a former Oil City, Pennsylvania, wildcatter
    co-opted into joining up as another John D. Rockefeller minion even
    though he was never "one of the boys." Van Dorn Detective Agency top
    investigator Bell has been hired by the Sherman Anti-Trust
    Corporations Commission to investigate Standard Oil.

    But things turn deadly. Spike Hopewell, Matters' old partner, is
    assassinated in a Kansas oil field. Then there's a Texas oil patch
    shooting, and other supposed accidental deaths are revealed as
    murders. Is the monopolist Rockefeller, who prides himself on dealing
    "fairly and squarely and aboveboard," resorting to murder to preserve
    the Octopus? Confused over whether he prefers Edna or Nellie, Bell
    goes undercover as Rockefeller's bodyguard and hits the road-Kansas,
    Texas, Washington, D.C., Russia's Baku oil fields-and gets embroiled
    in shoot-'em-ups between Tatars, Armenians, Social Democrats and bank
    bandits. Cussler loves historical factoids: The Pennsylvania-built
    Baldwin decapod engine was an oil-burner rather than coal-fired; a
    Cleveland-built Peerless Tonneau car made as good a bribe as a
    Rolls-Royce; and there's a difference between suffragette and
    suffragist. The usual Van Dorn detectives are useful background
    characters, Bell survives a balloon ride into the near-stratosphere,
    the psychopathic assassin gets comeuppance, and there's a
    well-choreographed flaming finale at New Jersey's Constable Hook
    refinery. Another action-movie-paced entertainment from Cussler's
    historical-thriller series.

    Publication Date: 2015-03-03
    Publisher: Putnam
    Stage: Adult
    ISBN: 978-0-399-17175-8
    Price: $28.95
    Author: Cussler, Clive



    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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