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Kirk McGarvey #6
Assassin
Yevgenni Anatolevich Tarankov, known as the tarantula, is out to turn back the clock in the new Russia and return to the good old days of communism. Ex-CIA officer Kirk McGarvey knows that any chance for Russian democracy rests on his sholders--and on the bullet with the tarantula's name on it.
Paperback
First published May 28, 1997
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About the author
David Hagberg
80 books137 followersaka David Bannerman, Sean Flannery, David James, Robert Pell, Eric Ramsey
David Hagberg is a former Air Force cryptographer who has traveled extensively in Europe, the Arctic, and the Caribbean and has spoken at CIA functions. He has published more than twenty novels of suspense, including the bestselling High Flight, Assassin, and Joshua's Hammer.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/davidh...
David Hagberg is a former Air Force cryptographer who has traveled extensively in Europe, the Arctic, and the Caribbean and has spoken at CIA functions. He has published more than twenty novels of suspense, including the bestselling High Flight, Assassin, and Joshua's Hammer.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/davidh...
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
September 30, 2022
Assassin by David Hagberg is another high speed thriller with a topic that could be current. Is there going to be a coup in Russia? if so will Kirk be a part of it? Well I for one had fun reading this book and will look forward to see what will happen in McGarveys life.
October 22, 2013
The first half of this book was pretty annoying to me. Everything was so cliche. The main character is an assassin who is aging but is still in great shape and is quite handsome with salt and pepper hair, he is the best assassin in the world and every night he is haunted by the faces of every person he has killed. Never heard that before. The love interest is a woman who is getting older but magically this seems to only make her more beautiful. And more important than that, she is also incredibly intelligent (although you wouldn't know it by some of her actions in the book). The events got better later in the book and barely saved it and made it worth the read.
June 27, 2019
Yevgenni Anatolevich Tarankov, known as the tarantula, is out to turn back the clock in the new Russia and return to the good old days of communism. Ex-CIA officer Kirk McGarvey knows that any chance for Russian democracy rests on his sholders--and on the bullet with the tarantual's name on it.
Been a while since I have read one of the Kirk McGarvey books. unfortunately, Overdrive does not have any of David Hagbergs books in the system. I now know why I enjoyed them so much... so much action from start to finish
Been a while since I have read one of the Kirk McGarvey books. unfortunately, Overdrive does not have any of David Hagbergs books in the system. I now know why I enjoyed them so much... so much action from start to finish
January 5, 2015
REVOLTING READ
David Hagberg. He's the poor man's Tom Clancy but he does well in writing what I shall call "espionage pulp fiction". It's cliché as hell but compared to say, the Alex Hawke series? The Kirk McGarvey series is entertaining. Unfortunately, this is the first book where Hagberg had a serious stumble (he had two more and 2013-14, only recovering with the upcoming book this year). "Assassin" embodies what is wrong with this thriller. From the mundane title, occasional cheesy moments, to the bad plotting and worse characterization (Hagberg's ultimate weakness as a writer is in full on display here) and a shattering of the suspension of disbelief, this I wouldn't recommend this thriller to anyone at all. There's stretching the suspension of disbelief and then there's blowing it to pieces. It's a bad book and can be seen as a cautionary tale for what happens when an story takes a lethal overdoes of conventions which have been done to death. Now to the review. What happened if a mad man with a plan decided to try bring Russia back to the days of Stalin.
The story is this. We have an ardent Stalinist gallivanting around Russia in an armored train (similar to Leon Trotsky in the Russian Civil War) networking and trying to undermine the democratic government. They try to stop him and he sends his personal shooter to have Boris Yelstin whacked. Having done so, a mid-level official at the SVR takes matters into his own hands and concocts a plan to take out the extremist. Flying to Paris, he contracts the job of killing the Stalinist to Kirk McGarvey. Unfortunately, their actions catch the eyes of the SDECE and the CIA where McGarvey's enemies in the company's top brass hit upon the "genius" idea of trying to use his daughter to stop him from completing the hit.
PLOT:
It's there but it isn't the best the author has done. A comedy of critical errors would be a more suitable description of what happens here. We have the SVR man who gets compromised and inadvertently dooms the original plan to the Russian government finally doing what it could have done at the beginning of the book and using their MIG-29's to blast the main antagonist's armored train just for starters. The plot twists can be seen from a mile away and all this is combined with dialogue that would make you cringe with embarrassment at how corny it is.
CHARACTERS:
The one great weakness of the Kirk McGarvey series. Time has passed but even now, the cast in this book is shockingly awful for a spy thriller. We reach the climax of the grudge the CIA top brass has with McGarvey and thankfully, they pay for it in a humiliating fashion, reduced to tearfully begging his closest associate for him to stop. Next, we have the Russian protagonists. Tom Clancy may have written up door-stoppers by the late 1990's but at least his Russian characters were damn competent at their jobs. Hagberg, by contrast, turns them into dithering idiots which allows the main antagonist to run rings around them (that Yelstin killing was only possible due to bad advice causing them to dither at blowing the villian off the face of Siberia).
Then there's the antagonists themselves. Stock characters. Very boring. And he uses some dated stereotypes for the characterization of one of them.
As for the female characters. The author outdid himself with making them as stupid as possible. First we have a female SDECE officer who Hagberg plays up as "smart" and "competent". Utter b******* if you ask me and see how easy it is for the antagonists to screw her over. Then there's Kirk McGarvey's daughter, Elizabeth. Just as dumb as the first one, she gets back into the role of "damsel in distress" which she took in her last role. Hagberg also gives her some of the worst dialogue in the book which makes her annoying as hell. It takes several more books till he kills her off but that's another story.
Only one good character. Otto Renecke. Oddball? Yes. Still has some annoying verbal tics? Unfortunately so. But he's so much more likable than all the other secondary characters, with more personality and competence than all of them combined. Last but not least, we have McGarvey. As far as technothriller protagonists go, I don't like him and he still has his unpleasant traits that I talked about in the previous books. Tom Clancy's John Clark is a thousand times more well rounded character. But in this book, Hagberg takes Kirk's badass traits and goes to town with them. Even with what seems to be everyone in the book trying to stop him, he stays one step ahead of friend and foe and carves a swathe of destruction through Moscow in the climax.
Overall, I do not recommend this book. Read it at your own discretion. Unlike the others, I can't call this a guilty pleasure because it left me guilty that I read it and I didn't enjoy reading it in the slightest. However, it does make me glad, when I compare this revolting mess to modern spy/geopolitical/military thrillers today. It shows how far the spy thriller genre has come as of 2015, how most authors have moved away from the badly executed and out of date tropes which riddle this book, and how said authors have become more creative at finding ways to thrill us and develop writing styles that wouldn't be more suited to a Saturday morning cartoon.
David Hagberg. He's the poor man's Tom Clancy but he does well in writing what I shall call "espionage pulp fiction". It's cliché as hell but compared to say, the Alex Hawke series? The Kirk McGarvey series is entertaining. Unfortunately, this is the first book where Hagberg had a serious stumble (he had two more and 2013-14, only recovering with the upcoming book this year). "Assassin" embodies what is wrong with this thriller. From the mundane title, occasional cheesy moments, to the bad plotting and worse characterization (Hagberg's ultimate weakness as a writer is in full on display here) and a shattering of the suspension of disbelief, this I wouldn't recommend this thriller to anyone at all. There's stretching the suspension of disbelief and then there's blowing it to pieces. It's a bad book and can be seen as a cautionary tale for what happens when an story takes a lethal overdoes of conventions which have been done to death. Now to the review. What happened if a mad man with a plan decided to try bring Russia back to the days of Stalin.
The story is this. We have an ardent Stalinist gallivanting around Russia in an armored train (similar to Leon Trotsky in the Russian Civil War) networking and trying to undermine the democratic government. They try to stop him and he sends his personal shooter to have Boris Yelstin whacked. Having done so, a mid-level official at the SVR takes matters into his own hands and concocts a plan to take out the extremist. Flying to Paris, he contracts the job of killing the Stalinist to Kirk McGarvey. Unfortunately, their actions catch the eyes of the SDECE and the CIA where McGarvey's enemies in the company's top brass hit upon the "genius" idea of trying to use his daughter to stop him from completing the hit.
PLOT:
It's there but it isn't the best the author has done. A comedy of critical errors would be a more suitable description of what happens here. We have the SVR man who gets compromised and inadvertently dooms the original plan to the Russian government finally doing what it could have done at the beginning of the book and using their MIG-29's to blast the main antagonist's armored train just for starters. The plot twists can be seen from a mile away and all this is combined with dialogue that would make you cringe with embarrassment at how corny it is.
CHARACTERS:
The one great weakness of the Kirk McGarvey series. Time has passed but even now, the cast in this book is shockingly awful for a spy thriller. We reach the climax of the grudge the CIA top brass has with McGarvey and thankfully, they pay for it in a humiliating fashion, reduced to tearfully begging his closest associate for him to stop. Next, we have the Russian protagonists. Tom Clancy may have written up door-stoppers by the late 1990's but at least his Russian characters were damn competent at their jobs. Hagberg, by contrast, turns them into dithering idiots which allows the main antagonist to run rings around them (that Yelstin killing was only possible due to bad advice causing them to dither at blowing the villian off the face of Siberia).
Then there's the antagonists themselves. Stock characters. Very boring. And he uses some dated stereotypes for the characterization of one of them.
As for the female characters. The author outdid himself with making them as stupid as possible. First we have a female SDECE officer who Hagberg plays up as "smart" and "competent". Utter b******* if you ask me and see how easy it is for the antagonists to screw her over. Then there's Kirk McGarvey's daughter, Elizabeth. Just as dumb as the first one, she gets back into the role of "damsel in distress" which she took in her last role. Hagberg also gives her some of the worst dialogue in the book which makes her annoying as hell. It takes several more books till he kills her off but that's another story.
Only one good character. Otto Renecke. Oddball? Yes. Still has some annoying verbal tics? Unfortunately so. But he's so much more likable than all the other secondary characters, with more personality and competence than all of them combined. Last but not least, we have McGarvey. As far as technothriller protagonists go, I don't like him and he still has his unpleasant traits that I talked about in the previous books. Tom Clancy's John Clark is a thousand times more well rounded character. But in this book, Hagberg takes Kirk's badass traits and goes to town with them. Even with what seems to be everyone in the book trying to stop him, he stays one step ahead of friend and foe and carves a swathe of destruction through Moscow in the climax.
Overall, I do not recommend this book. Read it at your own discretion. Unlike the others, I can't call this a guilty pleasure because it left me guilty that I read it and I didn't enjoy reading it in the slightest. However, it does make me glad, when I compare this revolting mess to modern spy/geopolitical/military thrillers today. It shows how far the spy thriller genre has come as of 2015, how most authors have moved away from the badly executed and out of date tropes which riddle this book, and how said authors have become more creative at finding ways to thrill us and develop writing styles that wouldn't be more suited to a Saturday morning cartoon.
August 30, 2020
Reasonable read, but just not "up" to five stars. Even my four star rating was a bit of a push... while the book was good, it was more "average".... simply not dynamic enough. The introduction of McGarvey's daughter was promising, but the writing for her part was somehow more routine than exciting. In fact "routine rather than exciting" describes pretty much how I felt about the whole book.
January 21, 2022
My first book by David Hagberg but I will definitely be looking for more! I struggled at the beginning with so many Russian names, but once this book heated up, it got HOT and stayed that way to the end. Hagberg's Kirk McGarvey reminded me of Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp. Can't wait to read more from this author.
February 17, 2025
Not believable but enjoyable
January 27, 2016
This is my 5th Kirk McGarvey story. It is a no-nonsense, easy to follow thriller....unlike #4, High Flight, which was complicated, technical, but exciting.
In this novel, Kirk is contacted by former Russian spies he had known in the past who want him to assassinate a Russian known as Tarantula. The Tarantula is planning to take over the Russian government and return it to its "greatness" under Stalin.
Kirk is joined by a French spy (whom he is falling in love with) and his daughter in a story that has nearly non-stop action, some of which is most likely implausible....but fun reading.
Kirk McGarvey was more or less kicked out of the CIA due to a botched assignment years ago; but the CIA keeps calling on him to help out without the CIA's involvement. The first 5 McGarvey novels involve a CIA Director who appreciates what McGarvey can do, and a Deputy CIA Director who cannot stand McGarvey. This situation plays out in each of the McGarvey novels I have read so far.
In this novel, Kirk is contacted by former Russian spies he had known in the past who want him to assassinate a Russian known as Tarantula. The Tarantula is planning to take over the Russian government and return it to its "greatness" under Stalin.
Kirk is joined by a French spy (whom he is falling in love with) and his daughter in a story that has nearly non-stop action, some of which is most likely implausible....but fun reading.
Kirk McGarvey was more or less kicked out of the CIA due to a botched assignment years ago; but the CIA keeps calling on him to help out without the CIA's involvement. The first 5 McGarvey novels involve a CIA Director who appreciates what McGarvey can do, and a Deputy CIA Director who cannot stand McGarvey. This situation plays out in each of the McGarvey novels I have read so far.
December 10, 2023
Terrific, as usual! And even though I dread the last page, these always have the best endings;-)
October 12, 2009
very cunning thriller
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews