The Face of the Assassin

Really a great read, from an writer that is consistantly first rate. The Mexico City setting for part of the book is fantastic, you can feel the city close in. Lindsey really gets Mexico City and through his writing skills and gift for great imagery, the city comes alive. The story is fast paced and riviting, I hate it when people tell the whole story in their review, so ill just say, if you like taunt well written thrillers set in exotic locals, then you will love this book. Buy it!..Highly Recommended....frankly read all of his books, they are all, great reads.

First I must confess, I am a huge fan of David Lindsey, I think he is one of the five best thriller writers working today. I am always trying to turn on people to his writing. Let me say I thought this was one of his best books, it has the classic Lindsey prose and the great locations maticulously researched. I found Paul Bern a facinating protagonist and the villian was vintage Lindsey. I always love when he sets his books in Mexico City, he really has a feel for the city, you can almost smell the decay. The story has a fast pace and I read it over a weekend, I just could not wait to see what happened to Paul Bern. The only qualm I have is that I wish Lindsey would set his books back in Houston, instead of Austin, I mean I love Austin, but Houston has a real soul that Austin will never have. If you enjoy reading fast paced, well written thillers, then you will love this book.

Forensic artist Paul Bern has the ability to take a skull and, with the right materials, recreate the face that once graced it. He spends much of his day sketching pictures for the police, often keeping Alice, his goddaughter who was brain damaged in the same boating accident that took his wife, company. The two have a sort of peace between them, his drawing calms her, and he enjoys her company, even though she doesn't seem to be able to understand a word he says. Her own conversation seems perfectly normal, save for the fact that the way she puts the words together make no sense. A woman brings a skull to him, claiming that she bought it off a street kid in Mexico. She needs to know if it is, as told, the skull of her lost husband. Alice doesn't believe her...something about her facial expressions makes the young women believe their visitor is lying, but Paul doesn't mind, knowing that though Alice is accurate, she could be picking up on anything. But soon his client will disappear, and the face that the skull reveals is uncannily like his own. When he meets Mondragon, the man blackmails him into helping the CIA. They want him to take the place of the man the skull once belonged to. Paul learns that he had a twin brother, Jude Lerner, and that Jude had managed to infiltrate a terrorist network. No one knows Jude's dead, and it's up to Paul to learn how to be his brother...everything he was, Paul needs to become, in order to destroy the network. One of the most interesting things about this story is how Paul learns about his brother...and, oddly enough, about himself. Jude, according to his ex-partner Susana, was not the most likable of men. This is a unique way of telling the story, having the protagonist step into someone else's shoes, someone with uncanny similarities (for instance, they have a lot of the same ways of sitting, same expressions, which is interesting since they never met each other) and tragic differences. Things he never thought himself capable of, he finds himself doing, all because Jude did. The main idea of the story...that a terrorist leader is looking to defect and that Jude/Paul is the only one he trusts enough to help him is also well done, and lends itself to many page turning moments, especially since you know that it's not going to as simple as all that, not in the least. The run down is that Lindsey once again takes an extremely interesting situation and creates a tense, intelligent, action packed read. Paul Bern is a thoughtful and very deeply written protagonist.

I have been a fan of David Lindsey since I was at university. I have read all of his books and this is one of his best. The story never flags and the pace is an adrinaline rush. Other reviewers have summerized the story, a bit exhaustably I might add, but I'll just say that if you like your thriller taunt, well written, and billiantly paced you will love this book.

There are certain authors one simply cannot get enough of. They regularly turn out a book a year. But one wishes they could spin them off once a month. David Lindsey is top of my personal list and his new work, "The Face of the Assassin" will keep him there. In a word the book is just superb. Its enormously inventive, credible despite being incredible, and impressively researched to boot. (You might have to look up "frenulum" in the dictionary. And don't bother checking him out on extracting mitochondrial and nuclear DNA from bone if you're an amateur forensic nut--I'm a scientist; he's correct) The book bears his trademarks of psychological suspense and his frequent exploration of the many shades and facets of violence, and again features his wonderful ability to bring south Texas and Mexico alive in his pages. Lots of luck trying to put this down before you're done!