Soul of the Assassin

Larry Bond's First Team #4

by Larry Bond, Jim DeFelice

When the CIA is tipped off that one of its most wanted men is going to be in Bologna, Italy, Ferg and the First Team are tasked to apprehend him at any cost--but under no circumstances can Italian authorities be made aware. There is just one problem: no one has seen the man in over ten years, and he is only known by a decades-old code-name: T-Rex. This assassin has been involved in the murder of at least a dozen prominent western leaders, and the grapevine reveals he's been called out of a long, silent hiding for one more major strike.

Ferg and the Team arrive in Italy, where they recruit the help of a beautiful French Samaritan named Jane Foucoult. Her knowledge leads them on a search that goes behind the scenes of a conference on genetics and onto a trail to a sinister Russian scientist, a leader at the forefront of biological-weapons research.

Splitting the team in two, Ferg and Guns go after the ghosts they speculate could be T-Rex, and Rankin and Thera get on the scientist's tail. But what they uncover is way beyond a single assassination attempt, and they find themselves about to go head-to-head with the most lethal terrorist cells known to man.

Genres: Thriller, Military Fiction, Fiction

383 pages, Hardcover

First published May 13, 2008

About the author

Larry Bond is the author of several bestselling military thrillers, including Crash Dive, Cold Choices, Dangerous Ground, Red Phoenix and the Larry Bond’s First Team and Larry Bond’s Red Dragon Rising series. He was a naval officer for six years, serving four on a destroyer and two on shore duty in the Washington DC area. He's also worked as a warfare analyst and antisubmarine technology expert, and he now writes and designs computer games, including Harpoon and Command at Sea. He makes his home in Springfield, Virginia.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/larrybond

Reviews

[Tim · Rating 1 out of 5]

I enjoy most of Larry Bond's books, but not this. It is a jumbled mess that takes forever to get along and when it finally does, it's quite lackluster. For this convoluted effort, 2 of 10 stars

[Glen · Rating 4 out of 5]

CIA Operative, Bob Ferguson and his team, follow a lead to Italy in the hopes of taking out an elite assassin who goes by the code name T-Rex. T-Rex is responsible for killing one of their own agents and they will stop at nothing to find him, or her, since no-one knows exactly who they assassin is. They receive Intel that T-Rex will be at a science conference in Italy for his next target. The team believes his next target is a rogue Russian scientist named Rostislawich who is an expert in biological weapons research. While following the Russian scientist, in hopes of drawing out the assassin, they cross paths with British and Russian operatives who seem to have their own agenda.
The book is full of action with many twists and turns, leaving you wondering through the whole book who the assassin, T-Rex, really is. The ending had me fooled. The assassin was not even close to who I originally expected. This was a good book that I would recommend to anyone who likes an action novel with a surprising ending.

[Marjorie Schultz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed it as much as Day of the Jackal or Daniel Silva's books

[Bill Donhiser · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good action adventure. Decent plot. Nice Twist at the end. Not up to standards of some others in this Genre but still a good read

[Yo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hard to write a great spy novel.

[John Oldfield · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Team OK

[Jerome Otte · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the plot and it was nice that the Team was split up so that we could focus on some of the more peripheral characters for a while. The Team goes to Bologna, Italy to track down and international assassin named T Rex. Unfortunately, the CIA has no idea what he looks like. While in Italy, the Team finds out about a desperately poor Russian biological-weapons researcher who thinks selling a deadly strain of E. Coli to an Iranian IRGC agent will make him richer. This nugget of intel takes the team to Naples, Rome, Lybia, and Sudan. The suspense in the last section really picked up. Lastly, the intrigue of revolving around the assassin T-Rex's identity was refreshing.

However, it seemed that this book moved considerably slower than its predecessors. There seemed to me to be several unnecessary scenes that didn't move the plot forward. Likewise, the First Team's almost immediate empathy for one of the bad guys seemed quite out of place. The book seemed to me to end rather quickly - no-one seemed surprised or upset at the true identity of T-Rex. Also, at the end, why the hell do the Russian FSB agents arrest the Iranian agent who's trying to acquire the E. coli? Aren't Russia and Iran supposed to be allies?

[Nigel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life can certainly get complicated in the First Team. Sent to Italy to capture and top international assassin codenamed T-Rex the mission quickly turns into something a deal more sinister. In trying to uncover possible targets the team fix on a bio-science conference as one of the attendees is a known Russian germ warfare expert. This sets the usual multiple plate spinning exercise, especially after the team foil what appears to be an attack on the scientist.
Throw into the mix an Iranian middle man who appears to be in town to purchase something from the Russian and you have the US’s worst nightmare, that of an unstable non-democratic country getting their hands on a working WMD. Can the team find the answers to all these questions in time to save lives?
This is another solid outing from Bond and brings to an end my re-reading of all of his currently published works. It is a fast past, espionage /techno thriller which builds tension with mis-direction and red herrings coupled with intense action scenes that keep the reader on the edge of their seats.

[J · Rating 2 out of 5]

Little flat, ending was lackluster

[Mark Lykken]

Not bad!

[Jerry Blackerby · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book. A little too much jumping around for me, but still interesting and enjoyed the book. Did not know the primary antagonist until almost the end.