An assasin arrives on a beach in Massachusteus during World war 2 and ends up killing two civilian partolmen. Mikael Lammeck is recruited by the Secret Service from his position in Scotland by Agent Nabbit to help catch the assasin before she can kill president Roosevelt. An interesting story but parts of it drag and too much time is spent with the assasin. ( )

On the back cover of this book, in bold letters, are these words: "What if FDR was assassinated?" Well, la dee da, there's the entire plot of the book in a nutshell. Which is fine, if you think about it: historical fiction is written with the assumption that your audience knows how it all turns out, at least generally. The trick is to involve characters sympathetic enough that the reader cares what happens to them as individuals. Unfortunately, that does not happen here. The story follows Mikhal Lammeck, a professor who specializes in the history of assassination, as he attempts to uncover a plot to kill the president. That might be somewhat interesting, if a bit cliche, except that Lammeck is also an expert military instructor of - you guessed it - assassins. He spends a lot of time fumbling around, though I find it difficult to believe that after so many years of training killers he'd have so little idea of how to handle tracking one. The assassin herself is marginally more interesting, but still little more than the barest of sketches. I suppose this light treatment was probably intended to make her seem mysterious, but it came off as shallow. I will say that the anecdotes about various assassins through history were quite interesting, but I could have read that in other books without first wading through the tedium of this story. ( )

Stymied by other books I was reading and the recent holidays, I knew I just needed something that was quick and entertaining to recharge the old batteries, so I decided to give this a whirl.

It easily passed a couple of nights, was intriguing and fun.

There's no meat on the bones for a bookgroup discussion, but then I don't think that was how it was written. If you're looking for something along the lines of early Ludlum or Higgins, you'll enjoy this one! ( )

http://www.austcrimefiction.org/node/3642 ( )