Burnt Sienna

by David Morrell

Famous artist, and ex-Marine, Chase Malone is hired by wealthy arms dealer Derek Bellasar to paint a portrait of his wife, Sienna. Malone learns Bellasar has married a string of beauties--all of whom have died after their portrait was painted. Now working for the CIA to keep a biological arms deal from going down, Chase must save Sienna--and his own life.

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Suspense, Action, Crime

432 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

David Morrell is a Canadian novelist from Kitchener, Ontario, who has been living in the United States for a number of years. He is best known for his debut 1972 novel First Blood, which would later become a successful film franchise starring Sylvester Stallone. More recently, he has been writing the Captain America comic books limited-series The Chosen.

Reviews

[Glen Krisch · Rating 4 out of 5]

The one flaw: the evil character once again fails to see that his nemesis is dead before leaving him bloodied and near-death.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

BURNT SIENNA by David Morrell is a well written, action packed, romantic thriller. I've read a review on here that compared this book to Twilight (which, this novel was published 5 years before that, if I'm correct) and I just don't agree, nor do I see the correlation between the two works. They are completely different in both tone and the quality of the writing (Morrell is better, of course).

Getting back to the story at hand, Chase Malone is a former Marine helicopter pilot who turns to painting landscapes. Living in near seclusion in Mexico, he is approached by a wealthy tycoon's associate to do a painting of the tycoon's wife. Not only is the tycoon, the purely evil Bellasar, in reality a black market arms dealer, but he's also had numerous wives. It is revealed later on in the book that his wives all die of some tragic accident shortly after they are immortalized on canvas. After rejecting the offer, Chase is approached by Jeb, a man whom Chase saved in his military career. Jeb offers Chase the job of infiltrating Bellasar's fortress like home to save his wife, Sienna, and to also bring down Bellasar.

What follows after that is pretty predictable. Chase obviously falls in love with Sienna and the job becomes less about doing the CIA a favor and more just saving the woman of his dreams. The book starts off pretty fast and then slows down during the middle. The middle sections, which are not action packed at all, are necessary to develop the relationship between Chase and Sienna. Once their mutual attraction is out in the open, Morrell throws every obstacle he can at them to prevent them from being together. To be honest, as I was reading, I started to get a little aggravated by this. It was just one thing after another, which was a good thing, because it forced me to keep reading. I mean to say that I was aggravated as a complement towards Morrell's writing rather than a slight.

The final third of the book starts to get a little over the top, though, and there was one very, all too convenient scene which involves Chase, Jeb, and a storm on a beach. You'll know what I'm talking about when you get there. Also, Chase begins to channel his inner John McClane as he is battered and bloodied but will still stop at nothing as he takes on Bellasar's private army at the end. The final showdown with Bellasar was kind of underwhelming for me, as I was expecting more of a close quarters fight between the two.

Overall, this book isn't perfect, but it is very entertaining and thrilling. I thought that the love story was very well done and, while the ending may have been a bit predictable, I still enjoyed it for being bitter sweet and not the cop out ending a lot of these types of stories have.

[Sharon · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't think I expected to become *nearly* as engrossed in this book as I did. Yet, once I started, I didn't want to stop reading.

Fine artist Chase Malone is approached in his remote Cozumel home with the offer of a commission to paint a rich man's wife. However, he doesn't take commissions. The ex-Marine made up his mind to never take orders from another man again.

The rich man doesn't like taking "no" for an answer, and he slowly starts to destroy Chase's life, both literally and figuratively. Then, Chase's old military buddy Jeb shows up ... and tells him that he needs to take that commission in order to rescue Sienna, the wife, who is in danger of being killed. And how does he know? Because Jeb works for the CIA.

Chase decides to take the job, because he wants revenge on Derek Bellasar, the man who has been wrecking his life, and winds up living on Bellasar's compound in Nice. There, he learns that there is more to Bellasar than just inherited wealth and power, and just why it is that Jeb needs him to get Sienna out.

This is a thriller of the first water. We know all along who the bad guys are; it's just a matter of whether the good guys will be able to stop them in time -- on the surface. On the deeper level, this is a look at the kind of things that could happen when psychopaths have immense wealth and power and treat the people around them as possessions to be disposed of at will.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters and problems were believable, even as they seemed to be happening almost entirely to the well-to-do set whom one would think beyond such things. Highly recommended.

[Erzsebet Meszar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read, full of unexpected twists and turns!

[itchy · Rating 4 out of 5]

brief synopsis:
a black-market arms dealer upsets an artist's life by taking interest in artist's work.
artist retaliates by taking interest in arms dealer's wife.

setting:
cozumel, mexico
manhattan, new york
nice, france
maryland
virginia
braddock, texas (fictional)
yuma, arizona
san luis, arizona
santa clara, mexico
istanbul, turkey
tuscany, italy

named personalities:
charles 'chase' malone aka dale perry aka thomas corrigan - a painter who was once a military helicopter pilot
douglas 'doug' fennerman - chase's art representative
jeb wainright - the copilot who was shot down with chase
alexander 'alex' potter - derek's lackey
derek bellasar - a black-market arms dealer
yat balam - the mayayn proprietor of coral reef
jesus christ - a jewish religious leader
rodriguez - a cia operative posing as a cab drive
roberto rivera - a bank officer
valdez - some client of the bank
sienna bellasar aka beatrice perry aka janice corrigan - derek's wife
kandinsky - presumably wassily kandinsky
klee - presumably paul klee
munch - a norweigian painter known for the scream
thomas malthus - the author of an essay on the principle of population
richard 'rich' - just a name mentioned
daniel 'dan' - ditto
hobbes - the author of leviathan
rossano brazzi - an italian actor
dante - the author of the divine comedy
beatrice - the inspiration for the divine comedy
gabriel charles dante rossetti - an english painter and poet
elizabeth - gabriel's beautiful wife
christina gabriela bellasar - derek's sister
harry lockhart - a pilot that was supposed to rendezvous with chase in nice
pierre - a nice pilot
pierre benét - a restaurant owner
tariq ahmed - derek's main competitor
vasili gribanov - a biowarfare specialist
sergei bulganin - another biowarfare specialist
peter 'clint' braddock - one of chase's biggest fans
james dean - an actor in giant
remington - presumably frederic remington
dale perry - a cia operative whose identity chase used
lewis - presumably meriwether lewis
clark - presumably william clark
kirk - a fictional captain who was quoted for the phrase 'where no one has gone before'
fernando - a fisherman
sophia loren - a voluptuous brunette with full lips and arousingly dusky eyes
ramirez - a mexican captain
mary - the mother of jesus
joseph - mary's husband
bonita - presumably fernando's wife
dillon - jeb's stocky partner
raymond baker - a heavyset man with short blond hair

plot:
p136: nails screeched as a crowbar pried them free.

p177: the second chopper was due to return with a load of lab equipment in thirty minutes. until then, the only way to go after malone and sienna was is vehicles.

that was dumb, in hindsight.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just adore David Morrell. His writing is so flawless. This book blew me away. No fillers with Morrell just spot on suspense and thrill rides. I don't know why it took me 20 years to find him but I plan on scooping up all of his books I can find. This book we find an ex CIA guy turned painter living as a recluse in Mexico. A rich man wants Chase to paint a portrait for him. Chase declined the offer and that was his first mistake.

[Barb Middleton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fast paced thriller with minimalist writing style and fun twists and turns in the plot. The thriller plot is a bit predictable but the author knows his craft well and keeps the reader guessing. At the end I know either the girl lives or dies but he puts a great twist on it. I liked how he uses Dante and Beatrice’s story from the Divine comedy for the reader to make comparisons. Much has to do with idealized beauty, obsession, unrequited love and predatory behavior. The villain’s motive is three-dimensional as well making him not a flat character. The woman comes across as stereotyped in the beginning but not by the end. I liked the ambiguous ending.

[Tim Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can read my review at http://world-of-sleuths.blogspot.com/....

[Judith Sonnet · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great action thriller with a cool lead, plenty of thrills, and an explosive finale.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

After leaving the marines Chase Malone has found success as an artist. So much success that he comes to the attention of international arms dealer, Derek Bellasar. Bellasar wants Malone to paint two portraits of his wife, Sienna. Bellasar wants him to do it very much and is willing to go to extreme lengths to “convince” Chase it would be a wise career (and life) choice to accept the commission. Despite the fact that Malone is officially a civilian the Secret Service jumps on the chance to get one of their own close to this international bad guy. Things go from bad to worse, and soon Chase and Sienna are on the run not only from Bellasar but from the government as well.

I have been a fan of Mr. Morrell’s for several years. As I have mentioned in a prior post he is the creator of Rambo in his novel “First Blood” so that should give readers some idea of the type of books he writes. He has written others, one with a bit of a gothic undertone (Double Image) and one a quite funny tongue and cheek poke at his own genre (The Spy Who Came for Christmas), but with Burnt Sierra he is true to his strength … the thriller. I enjoyed the book.

[Ronald Ward · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember reading this a long time ago.

It was interesting because an ex-military guy is trying to forget his past and move on.

The quality/success of his work is recognized because a wealthy guy wants him to do a portrait of his missus.

Tension is created when he refuses and you are drawn along because you want to know the consequences for him.

The story thickens when he agrees and you can feel the danger level going up when he is living with the couple.

Then when he discovers the truth the pace quickens and you pulled along a roller-coaster ride fraught with danger from different angles and right at the end when you think the new couple is safe - BAM!

A good climax, plenty of opportunity to feel empathy/involvement.

[Jean · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've tried David Morrell's before and didn't like them, but someone said Burnt Sienna was good, so I started it. It started out with painter (ex-military) Chase Malone being pursued by an agent for a very wealthy man who wants him to paint a portrait of the man's beautiful wife, Sienna. When Malone refuses, terrible things start happening to him. So, of course, he gives in. It stopped reading. Way too violent and evil for me and I thought the whole premise was too contrived. This book will keep me away from Morrell's books for a very long while.

[Jonas Carlsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my friends recommended "Burnt Sienna", and I just finished it on my holiday - very fitting, since "Burnt Sienna" really is a great book to bring along on holiday! It's entertaining, it has plenty of action, intrigue, and romance, and it's packed with small and huge cliffhangers that make the book a real pageturner. The story is familiar - an ex-soldier is hired by an intelligence agency to infiltrate a master criminal's organisation, only to fall in love with the criminal's wife and risk jeopardising the entire mission. Specifically, the plot really reminded me of "The Night Manager" by John le Carré. However, "Burnt Sienna" really does a couple of things differently from other books with the same premise. I really like how the main character, Chase Malone, is a helicopter pilot turned painter. It makes sense that the main character in an action novel would have a military background and that the story would deal somewhat with this - this book is written by the author of "First Blood", after all. However, it was really refreshing that he was involved in the plot because he was a very talented painter. That was a really innovative way to introduce a character into the world of espionage while still having him be able to perform a lot of classic action hero stuff throughout. I also really liked the villain, armsdealer Derek Bellasar. He has a lot of intimidating moments throughout, and his main motivations are extremely creepy and morbidly fascinating. I couldn't help but imagining someone like Timothy Dalton or Daniel Craig when reading Belassar - someone who can be extremely charming, but also intense when pushed. Finally, I kind of liked the ending. Without giving too much away, it really is a truly bittersweet ending. It's not like everything ends in total tragedy, but the main characters don't get away scot-free. The epilogue is really excellent because the consequenses of the ending are hinted at slowly throughout the chapter, but it is only revealed on the last page that those are in fact the consequenses. There are a few things that hold this book back from being amazing to me. The first is that there really are some action film/book clichés peppered throughout. The second is a twist revolving someone secretly working for Belassar. Without spoiling too much, Malone deduces who this person is, but I just couldn't follow his logic. I kinda thought he was wrong and that a different character would be revealed to be working for Belassar. I don't know whether it would have been interesting or predictable, but it would have made sense to me. Luckily, it all eventually made sense for me, but I really think this twist could have been executed better. Maybe it is because most of the book is told from Malone's point of view. He spends a lot of time isolated at Belassar's home, not knowing what is going on elsewhere. If we had followed Malone's friend Jeb from CIA and were given some more clues, I think this twist could have worked very well. Instead, it kinda confused me for the latter quarter of the book. However, in sum, "Burnt Sienna" is a well-crafted and extremely entertaining action novel that has some clichés, but also some really great and innovative ideas that make it worth reading. If you liked "The Night Manager" or "Whispers" by Dean Koontz, definetely check this one out!

[Alexander Engel-Hodgkinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5/5

Burnt Sienna is the breeziest 400-page novel I've read through in a while. In this case, that's a good thing. The plot, while simple enough, about a former military pilot-turned-painter thrust into a deadly game of infiltrate-exfiltrate-destroy, is well written, like everything else I've read from Morrell so far.

There's nothing really deep about it, but Morrell creates an interesting enough protagonist in Chase (although I found his obsession with Sienna to be a bit much at times--pure tunnel vision if I ever saw it), and a compellingly disturbing villain in Bellasar, a truly detestable individual whose collector's mania and OCD levels are far beyond what I would call 'obsession.' It's practically his lifestyle, to own and control things. He's a great foil, though he commits one of the ultimate Bond villain sins late in the book that I always found silly, and aside from his 'quirks' and the twist in the last third, he's not that interesting.

That's probably my only issue with this particular novel; none of the characters really transcend their basic character traits and play it completely straight to their templates--they pick a goal in the first third and follow them through with the same tunnel-vision that Chase has for Sienna all the way to the final chapters, although Bellasar's right-hand man at least seems to have a bit more depth to him than just about anyone else, strangely enough. But in this kinda novel, which strikes me as one of those laid-back action yarns that the author just wanted to write out, it's not so much a bad thing, especially when obsession is literally the theme of the story, right down to the slightly on-the-nose references to Dante's Inferno.

That being said, Burnt Sienna doesn't overstay its welcome and it moves at a brisk pace thanks to a plot that never slows down and Morrell's crisp writing style that I continue to find extremely appealing for the kind of life I lead at the moment--working in a factory, taking the time to read a few chapters during my breaks and (infrequent, I swear) trips to the shitter (just don't tell my employers that I read there too, lol). Morrell is a masterful writer and it's nice to see that he can write layered characters and stories like in First Blood while still having the ability to kick back and shoot out a fun romp like this one. I quite enjoyed it simply because of that; it's simple, it's neat, it gets the point across, it isn't gratuitous, and it's well-plotted. I could see this as an action movie and I'm kind of surprised it isn't one, honestly. Hell, it only took me six days to finish. Anything that can manage to be flown through like that without being forgettable deserves a bit more recognition than it's getting. I have a few more Morrell books on my shelf, so I might give one of those a go next.

[IAN SPEIGHT · Rating 3 out of 5]

Famous artist, and ex-Marine, Chase Malone is hired by wealthy arms dealer Derek Bellasar to paint a portrait of his wife, Sienna. Malone learns Bellasar has married a string of beauties--all of whom have died after their portrait was painted. Now working for the CIA to keep a biological arms deal from going down, Chase must save Sienna--and his own life.



It's often said in Football that the match was a game of two halves. Such is also true of this book.
While the first half of the book plods along,The second half literally explodes into action.That said I wasn't sure what was going on in Injury time (The Epilogue).

It reminded me of the kind of Book Alistair MaClean would have wrote, it had that type of narrative to it.

I thought that maybe one or two of the characters were a bit over the top especially the Female lead Sienna, who seemed to be a cross between an Amazon goddess & a Hollywood star. It's not too difficult to spot the one passing the intel onto the baddies neither, He seems all out of proportion, and one dimensional.

That David Morrell isn't a good writer is not the issue He is, there is enough testament to that at the beginning of the Book. However I think this might be one of the weakest of his novels I've read Especially in the first half.

[Alton Motobu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Four and a half stars; ambiguous ending (typical of Morrell novels) keeps it from a full five stars. Fast-paced non-stop suspense/thriller from start to finish as an artist (ex-Marine) is hired by a wealthy arms-dealer to paint 2 portraits of his beautiful wife. But CIA wants him to find intel about the dealer so they can neutralize him. Turns out the dealer is a lunatic who is on his third wife, all of whom resemble his sister with whom he had an incestuous affair until he killed her when she was 30. He had his previous wives killed when they reached 30 after he had their portraits done. Now the current wife falls in love with the artist, and they plan an escape. They travel from France, across the US, to Mexico, then are captured and sent back to France where all hell breaks loose as the artist steals an armored helicopter, totals the dealer's compound and apparently kills the dealer. (But with Morrell's plot lines no one is dead until DNA confirms it.) Ambiguous epilogue where the artist and the widow live in Sienna, Italy in seclusion.

[L.B. Holding · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this one because it was given as one of the finest examples of a thriller in one of my Plot/Structure instructional books I've been reading. It's a page-turner, yes, and it very clearly shows how Morrell throws problem after problem at the protagonist, ruthlessly giving that character absolutely no break. Disease, bombs, sudden helicopter attacks, yikes.

My characters are in for a very unhappy day tomorrow.

(This took months to read because 1) I took notes along the way and 2) it's a library book and I had to keep taking it back after renewing it twice each time and 3) because I read 30 books at a time.) So don't judge the book by how long it took me to get to the epilogue; it's really a very fast-paced action/adventure/thriller.

[Alyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Makes me think of a James Bond or Die Hard movie in print.

Morell writes well that i can feel the frustration and hopelessness of Chase and Sienna.

I can visualize the storm, the smoke and the other action-packed parts. I can visualize the zing of the bullets, the explosions, the numerous vehicular crashes.

If you are into action packed reading this one is for you

[Marianne Roser · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well titled

The story held my interest enough to recommend it to friends. There were a few scenes that disturbed my sleep which is very unusual for me. The author had me fearing for the title character.

[Sailaway · Rating 4 out of 5]

liked it.

[Cage Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

A story with an excellent flow, intriguing all the way through. a very enjoyable and fast-paced read.

[April · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ending felt a bit off somehow, rather contrived and not quite fitting the woman's character.

[Phil James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fairly straightforward thriller about an artist who gets caught up with an arms dealer and sets out for revenge. Easy going beach read but not one of Morrells best.

[Bent Andreassen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 pluss to 4 1/2. Very well written and intense thriller. Norwegian title: "Brent Sienna".

[Larry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another very good read by David Morrell. Action packed spy thriller.

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

A true page-turner......hard to put down......

[Lynne Block · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spy/action and a stretch.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast paced thriller, with many twits and turns. as well as a love story.

[Billy Forbes]

another great read from David Morrell he never fails to satisfy.

[Bob Box · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 2000. Character driven mystery.