Customer Reviews

The Accident Man: A Novel

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Two assassins are independently hired, by the mysterious British "Consortium", and unknowingly cooperate to murder "Princess Diana" in Paris. Next, the Russian team is supposed to kill Samuel Carver (the British assassin) and then be killed by a bomb which Carter placed earlier. But Carver and Alix (a member of the Russian team) escape, and for some unclear reason, team up. Then they find themselves running from the "Consortium", British Intelligence, and the Russian Mob.

The mush-mouth British narrator of the audio version frequently pronounces "Carver" as "Kava". Through several chapters I wondered where the heck this new (presumably Russian) character, "Kava", had come from. Speaking of Carver, at some point Alix asks him how he managed to get to be a British officer, when such positions are reserved for the upper class. Carver answers that got to be a British officer because he was adopted into a poor family, which didn't want him, and sent him off to boarding school--Huh? In return, Alix explains that she was chosen to be part of the assassination team because she was a KGB "honeytrap" agent, who was never given "spy" training nor even basic firearms training--Huh? What do they have in common? They find themselves romantically bound together by their mutual love of money and crass materialism. Really--they actually say that. How romantic! Essentially, they are both prostitutes, by choice.

A French intelligence agent (originally asked by the British for assistance), instead sells the location of Carver and Alix (in Geneva)to the Russians (for $500,000), and (even brighter), then betrays the Russians to British Intelligence (for a price). The Russian gangsters kidnap the frog, extract the information, and kill him. Who coulda foreseen that unfortunate event? Carver eludes the Russians, but they rescue their agent, Alix--for whom the reunion should have been a happy event.

So Carver arranges to be smuggled on a sailboat into Britain to look for her----Huh? The sailboat belongs to a friend and former brother-in arms. He brings along their former commanding officer to help crew the boat, who unfortunately happens to run the "operations unit" of the "Consortium", and who tries to murder Carver. Talk about rotten luck! The commander's plan was to drug the boat's owner, then shoot Carver, with the boat wildly pitching in a gale, (and then manage the sailboat by himself). It would have been much simpler to drug Carver too and tie him up or throw him overboard to drown, but we can't let logic interfere with the story.

It seems to be implied that "the Consortium" was a very shadowy, secretive, organization created for the sole purpose of arranging the assassination. Therefore, I would expect them to disband or at least "lie low" for a while after sponsoring the assassination of the century. Instead, days afterward, "the Consortium" still has a secretary answering the phone! The "Consortium" is described as having limited funds and therefore, knowing that Carver will be killed, somehow manage for the Swiss bank to report to Carver that the funds were received, but they don't bother actually transferring the funds. How does a private, foreign, "consortium" put that much pressure on a Swiss Bank? But they do have the cash to send a hit team to brutally exterminate the Swiss banker and his family.

For action junkies, "The Accident Man" contains plenty of action, suspense, murder, torture, etc.. For more critical readers, the convoluted, contrived, far-fetched events are just too much to stomach. In the hands of Donald Westlake this story could have been a hilarious comedy, but as written, falls short.

This book was an excellent book. The book was based on actual events around which the author wrote a "what if" story that was full of action and suspense, providing an entirely plausible "story" about what really happened when Princess Diane was killed. I have read the sequel and hope that the author writes more books.

This is an excellent first thriller by the author, with a clever and believable plot. I found it hard to put the book down as the pace is fairly evenly maintained throughout over 500 pages - with most of the plot occurring in just one action packed week in Switzerland and England. As has been commented elsewhere, the hero's behaviour does come across as inconsistent at times, although the author does provide valid reasons for this. I'll be looking forward to reading more of this author's work.

I love when a book takes a well known event and puts a spin on it.. I found this book to be very enjoyable, fast paced and interesting.

For much of this book, the pseudonymous Tom Cain was deftly delivering on the promise of an intriguing premise and a different kind of anti-hero. The premise: The death of the Princess of Wales (Cain never actually refers to her as Princess Diana) was really a cleverly orchestrated "hit". The anti-hero: Samuel Carver, the "Accident Man," a hit man of the highest order. When an assassination must be done right and set up to look like an accident, Carver is your man. But because even Carver could be a "loose end" if -- no, make that WHEN -- he figures out whom he has just killed, Carver becomes a marked man himself. So he ends up on a mission for his own survival that means he'll have to find who really set up the hit and kill them before they silence him permanently.

Intriguing indeed, and if left to that primary plot thread, Cain would have succeeded famously. Unfortunately, he sought to humanize his protagonist by making him vulnerable to the allure of a beautiful Russian who was an accessory to the crime. Carver quickly falls hard for the vixen, and this simply doesn't really ring true. Sure, even an ultra-professional like Carver COULD fall in love, but the extremes to which Carver will go, and the risks he will take, for "Alix" simply stretch believability within the constraints of the timeline if nothing else. What's more, Carver ultimately turns from hero to victim, from crackerjack assassin to pathetic martyr. Some hero, huh? In the end, author Cain proves himself a capable writer and a deft storyteller, but also one who tried a little too hard to make his hero accessible and ended up stripping him of his hero mantle completely. Pity.

Okay, The Accident Man by Tom Cain starts out very slow. I mean the first 40 or 50 pages drag. But then it is like flipping on a light switch, everything clicks into place. I think it is the fact that at that point, the reader discovers the plot revolves around the murder, not death, of Princess Diana.
The characters that Cain has created are very interesting. Carver is hitman, with ethics, he only kills bad guys. He specializes in making his hits look accidental. When he discovers that he has killed Princess Diana he vows to get the people that hired, and tricked him. The other characters, while not as well developed, are still intriguing.
Cain's writing is clear and precise. He moves the action along at a fast pace.
I guess Cain has a second book out that features Carver. I'm looking forward to reading it.

Tom Cain's new serial character, Sam Carver, creates 'accidents' to assassinate people--for a price. He pays attention to details, notices everything, and always succeeds. Unless his handler turns on him.

This is the story of Sam becoming the hunted, how he uses his unique skill set to avoid his own death, track down his would-be murderers and survive to live another day. Along the line, he finds love and redemption. Overall, a satisfying read with all those little intelligent twists that I love in a story.

Ugh...how often this happens. A debut novel gives a hero an interesting premise: Sam Carver is a hitman that kills bad people with methods that make it look like an accident. Ok, cool enough. Then the author falls for the number one cliche of seemingly cool action hero professions...he gives us 2 instances of Carver killing via accident, and then NEVER again. Don't tell me your hero is a hitman if he only kills one or two people before launching into the main plot. Don't tell me Carver is the "Accident Man" if we only see him cause at most 2 accidents (and by the way, the beginning plot twist is absurdly weak, I mean, REALLY? Couldn't it have just been a random person and not pulled from the newspapers? I really hate fiction that tries to be alternate history (unless it's a MAJOR historical difference a la the Nazis won WWII!).

The love interest is entirely unbelievable and takes no time at all (MAYBE 20 pages) to go from trying to kill Carver to sleeping with him.

Ah, my most grievous of offenses - Sam Carver is a wimp. He makes stupid mistakes while out with his love girl, isn't brutal at all, and at the end is found to be a crying, weak mess of a character. The end gave me hope...
SPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERTSPOILER ALERT
...when Carver is broken out of torture he seemed to have mentally snapped, speaking like someone from Brooklyn, but became cold and brutal while killing his captors in the most painful way - I really hoped he would stay this way...but alas, the end of the book finds Carver a sniveling mess at the sight of a TV remote. Thanks Mr. Cain, your hero is pathetic.

Oh well. Avoid this book and pick up a Jack Reacher novel, so far he's the only (besides James Bond of course) thriller hero that I have found very few flaws in. Lee Child's books continue to amaze me and I do believe that the Jack Reacher series is the most perfect (Nothing to Lose not being counted) thriller series I have ever read!

A passable action novel centered around a big "What if". If such a thing would happen at least the author has come up with a plausible reason why. The action is well done, but some editng would have helped some sections that went on way too long.

The Accident Man is a pretty average thriller with a very interesting premise: Samuel Carver is a freelance assassin who is hired to arrange a car accident in Paris in August 1997. (Because Carver is the hero of this book, Cain has made him an "assassin with principles" who only kills morally dubious targets like terrorists or pedophiles.) Unfortunately for Carver, he has been lied to in this instance and he finds out - too late - that his target was actually the Princess of Wales. Moreover, now that the job is done, someone is trying to kill him. His one ally is Alix, a glamorous Russian who is also on the run - but who may or may not be on his side.

The thing I liked most about this book is the grounding in an actual death (albeit one that I do not believe was an assassination). This gives it some sense of reality, something that is so often lacking in thrillers. The integration of Carver's fictional exploits with what we know about Diana's death is skillfully done. In fact, the first half of the book is great - it rips along at a cracking pace as Carver and Alix try to stay one step ahead of their pursuers.

But Tom Cain is unable to sustain the momentum and the action slows right down in the second half. The love story between Carver and Alix is formulaic and doesn't ring true. New characters are introduced seemingly for no reason other than to be killed off in the next chapter. And Carver - who is supposedly a professional hitman at the top of his game - makes a series of rash and/or poorly thought-through decisions that made me feel like hurling the book across the room in disgust.

The book ends in quite an unusual way for a thriller of this sort. Full credit to Cain for trying to write something a bit different, although I'm not sure it works. If you are after something lightweight and you're happy to disengage your brain, this is an okay choice. But keep your expectations low. I'd rate this on a par with the latter day Robert Ludlum novels (ie the ones that Ludlum didn't actually write).