The Perfect Assassin [Paperback]

Ward Larsen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2008

One perfect shot will change the course of history. Christine Palmer, a young American doctor sailing solo across the Atlantic, makes an incredible discovery - a man narrowly clinging to his life in the frigid waters. But there is much more to this desperate survivor than meets the eye.David Slaton is a Kidon - a highly-trained, highly-precise, and highly-dangerous assassin. The Kidon is both the hunter and the hunted, and he and Christine are in grave danger. Will they win in this race against time?With the precision of a sharpshooter, author Ward Larsen weaves an intricate tale of espionage and intrigue.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Larsen's competent debut has many of the right ingredients for a successful spy thriller: plenty of action, technical detail that would do Tom Clancy proud, and a hero with almost superhuman skills. When Christine Palmer, an American doctor sailing solo across the Atlantic, retrieves the almost lifeless body of David Slaton in the middle of the ocean, Slaton commandeers her small boat and demands she deliver him to England. A member of Kidon (Mossad's special assassination team), Slaton is the sole survivor of a ship that sank with a super-secret cargo-a pair of unaccounted for nuclear weapons. Double agents within Mossad want to kill Slaton before he uncovers their convoluted plot to use the weapons to undermine Israel's international support. Needless to say, they're soon after Palmer as well. What's missing is that no character, except for Palmer, has an inner life.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

First there was the Jackal, then Jason Bourne. Now meet David Slaton, the Kidon - a highly-trained Israeli assassin who is both hunter and hunted.

A gripping first novel. High octane action. Immerses you in the world and mind of the assassin. Nothing is what it seems.

A stunning blend of intrigue and espionage. A thriller of the highest order. Larsen's cast of characters keeps you riveted to the very end.

".plenty of action.technical detail that would do Tom Clancy proud"-Publishers Weekly

Winner, Royal Palm Literary AwardsGold Medalist, Military Writers Society of America AwardsSilver Medalist, Florida Book AwardsSilver Medalist, ForeWord Book of the Year Awards --This text refers to the Unknown Binding edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 360 pages
• Publisher: Oceanview Publishing (October 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933515155
• ISBN-13: 978-1933515151
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #37,996 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ward Larsen's first book, The Perfect Assassin, won numerous awards, including the Florida Book Award Silver Medal, and is currently undergoing screenplay adaptation for a major motion picture. His work has been nominated for both the Edgar and Macavity Awards. A former U.S. Air Force fighter pilot, Larsen flew over twenty missions in Operation Desert Storm. He has also served as a Federal Law Enforcement officer, and is a trained aircraft accident investigator.
His fourth book, Fly By Night, was released in November 2011.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This has it all, May 11, 2006

By 

ellen "ellen in atlanta" (Atlanta, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: The Perfect Assassin (Hardcover)

Ward Larsen's 1st work is great - Has all the components to please just about anyone - Spy thriller, assassins, romance, race to avoid disaster, redemption...Larsen's David Slaton reminds me a little of David Silva's Gabriel Allon - both have had personal tragedies in their lives, both are proud of their ancestry, both excellent agents. It also does, as someone referred to, remind me of a Tom Clancy work, without the detailsdetailsdetails - in other words Perfect Assassin is a complete reader's dream. You will enjoy it.

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A promising debut novel, January 2, 2007

By 

Debra Hamel (North Haven, CT) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Perfect Assassin (Hardcover)

Sailing solo across the Atlantic westward from France Dr. Christine Palmer, just finished with her third year of residency, pulls aboard a man clinging to a cooler amid the flotsam of a shipwreck. Christine's stumbling across the man in the middle of the ocean is a bit of needle-in-a-haystack good luck that she comes to wish had never happened. Her unexpected passenger--whose name, we eventually learn, is David Slaton--soon commandeers the boat and orders her to sail to England. It is, for Christine, the unpleasant start of a harrowing adventure that will see the two of them running simultaneously from Scotland Yard and from rogue elements within the Israeli secret service.

Ward Larsen tells his story from multiple points of view, his principal characters given just enough back story to make them sympathetic. Perhaps the most compelling of the lot is the Yard's Inspector Nathan Chatham, first introduced in chapter eight, a charming technophobe who is clever and quirky enough to anchor his own series. It is a pleasure, too, to watch our hero outsmart his adversaries using the training of a lifetime of service in Mossad. We certainly come to like Larsen's characters enough to want them to prevail, but it's also true that we are never really made to worry about them. Christine and David are placed in peril repeatedly in the book, but we never doubt that they will both come out safe in the end. Part of the reason for this may be that the bad guys never emerge as fully realized characters. There is no flesh-and-blood villain to root against.

Larsen's debut novel may not pack the sort of suspense that will keep you turning the pages too late at night, but it's a solid spy novel and a good quick read. I'll look forward to seeing more from this author.

-- Debra Hamel

17 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice Try, But Flawed Effort, July 3, 2009

By 

zorba (Bala Cynwyd, Pa USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Perfect Assassin (Paperback)

Larsen is a Daniel Silva wannabe but, unfortunately, he comes up short. But his miss is not great and perhaps this promising writer, after a few more efforts, will someday achieve the status he seeks. The problem with "The Perfect Assassin" is that it's one of those thrillers which essentially amount to a 300-page chase to capture a misunderstood assassin who is really a good guy. And it's one of those breathless books in which several months' worth of activity takes place in a few days. The thin plot is predictable and is laden with laughable coincidence after coincidence which enable the hero to survive throughout the book. One of those coincidences is the female character who JUST HAPPENS to be sailing a boat across the Atlantic when the so-called assassin is about to drown, and WHO JUST HAPPENS to be a doctor, which will enable her to save his life later on, and so on. You know the kind of book I'm talking about -- think a poor Robert Ludlum. However, I did enjoy the book and read it through to the very predictable end. Not the best thriller I've read, but not the worst, either.