Official Review: The Assassination Diaries - The Bishop

[HateToWin]

[Following is the official OnlineBookClub.org review of "The Assassination Diaries - The Bishop" by John Newton.]

This book starts with a secluded house on the outskirts of a small town exploding, the only thing that survives is a fireproof strong box that contains numerous documents, which turn out to be a series of diaries by a female assassin who goes by the name of Maddy.

By the time Maddy came out of college she could speak six languages and had two top degrees. Within days of leaving college she was recruited to become an assassin and agreed to an interview. She had excelled at sports in school, was able to beat men in martial arts, and had been taught to handle a gun before she was ten and had become an excellent shot. She had everything required to be an assassin, but to become one she would have to devote her life to it, and never go back to a normal life, she still said yes, as the thought of killing people who deserved it sounded attractive to her.

Although this book is supposed to be told as a series of diary entries it doesn't feel like you are reading from a diary, most of the scenes are described more as watching them happen, rather then a first person retelling of what happened. While I don't think the telling of it in this way is bad, I do feel that having it supposed to be a diary doesn't help the story, and at times hurts it since it doesn't go as deep into other characters as I would've liked.

I found the action scenes and the assassinations to be well written, and I enjoyed how much it was varied. I also enjoyed the multiple disguises Maddy used to get around to help her finish the mission.

While I did like the action scenes and the way in which Maddy blended into the towns to get closer to her targets, I feel the sex scenes, which are a good portion of this book, are lacking. While sex does play a crucial role in this book, alot of the sex scenes feel poorly written and don't impact the story in a big enough way to have them there.

Overall I would have to give this book 2 out of 4 stars, the action was good, but I didn't find myself caring about most of the characters, and many of the sex scenes threw off the tempo of the book.

***
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[seand]

Thanks for this interesting review. I'll take note of what you say for others in the series.

-- 04 Jan 2013, 11:16 --

Thanks for this interesting review. I'll take note of what you say for others in the series.