Review - Birth of an Assassin by Rik Stone

(Disclaimer - I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review)

I was apprehensive when I got the book but have to say I was pleasantly surprised. I don't read a lot of thrillers but found Birth of an Assassin fast-paced and well-plotted. The best part, to me, was the deft handling of the character development of the protagonist, Jez Kornfeld. As the teaser says below the story follows his development. I would modify that to the story IS his development. Stone does a very good job. Strongly recommended.

Book Description:

Set against the backdrop of Soviet, post-war Russia, Birth of an Assassin follows the transformation of Jez Kornfeld from wide-eyed recruit to avenging outlaw. Amidst a murky underworld of flesh-trafficking, prostitution and institutionalized corruption, the elite Jewish soldier is thrown into a world where nothing is what it seems, nobody can be trusted, and everything can be violently torn from him.

Given the order to disperse and arrest a crowd of Jewish demonstrators in Red Square, Jez breaks up the rally but discovers his sisters in their ranks. Rushed for a solution, he sneaks the girls from under the noses of secret police and hides them in downtown Moscow. But he knows they will no longer be safe in Russia. He has to find them a safe route out.

The journey begins, but he is unaware that his every move is being observed and that he has set in motion a chain of events that will plunge his life into a headlong battle to stay alive.

Author Bio:

Do children born into poverty become impoverished adults? It happens; pitfalls and roadblocks to advancement are everywhere. Rik Stone grew up poor amidst the slum-lands of fifties North East England, and left school at 15 without any academic qualifications.

He worked in the shipyards on a local river and later went into the merchant navy. Further down the line, he worked quarries in Essex in South East England.

But life was without horizons until, contrary to what his teachers had told him, he found he was capable of studying and completed a BSc degree in mathematics and computing.

Life got lucky for him when he took company pension at 50 and began writing. And now, here he is offering up his debut novel Birth of an Assassin, the first in a series.

Links :

Amazon UK. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Birth-of-an-Assassin-ebook/dp/B00DIFVC3S/

B&N. http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/birth-of-an-assassin-rik-stone/1115953870?ean=9781783010998

Kobo. http://store.kobobooks.com/en-gb/books/birth-of-an-assassin/-ykZ9LomEEqWVVtGlJrG-A

Waterstones. http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/rik+stone/birth+of+an+assassin+28ebook29/9960214/

Amazon US. http://www.amazon.com/Birth-Assassin-Rik-Stone-ebook/dp/B00DIFVC3S/ref=tmm_kin_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1389210245&sr=8-1

Website: http://rik-stone.simdif.com

Twitter: @stone_rik

Buckskin Run - Review

This is a collection of 6 western stories with 5 short historical vignettes. The stories were originally published in pulp magazines in the 1940s and 1950s. The vignettes are new to the book. The vignettes are not related to any of the stories.

I am a big fan of L'Amour. However, these stories are not his best. They do have interesting twists and plenty of action and his signature strong, moral protagonists.The eponymous story, where the protagonists solves an old mystery, "Jackson of Horntown" where an aging sheriff goes out to capture the last surviving member of a (supposedly) lawless family but finds something else instead, and "Down the Pagonip Trail" where an outlaw and a sheriff find much more than they expect from a down and almost out rancher are the best.

The stories all read quickly and are full of the wholesome adventure and the flavor of the Old West as it progressed from empty wilderness to settled farm and ranch. They are perfect for reading when one doesn't have a lot of time or wants something relatively light.

Three stars (of 5).

Review - Who's Bigger?

Who's Bigger by Steven Skiena and Charles B. Ward. Published by Cambridge University Press. Available at most retailers.

This is a fascinating book with an extremely interesting concept. The authors use the incredible power of the internet, Wikipedia, and Google's Ngrams to create a mathematical rating system (significance) for people, both current and historical. They then use these data to compare people in many areas, professions, and times. They explain their processes and calculation very well and then provide comparisons with "experts" and "Top 100" lists, etc. to validate that what they measure is actually doing the job.

Then they delve into literally scores of categories to compare the most significant figures. Was Thomas Edison more significant than Alexander Graham Bell or Eli Whitney? Who was the most significant world leader between the world wars? Which King or Pope had the most long-term significance? They do admit that the data in Anglo-centric, all of the data is in English, and they have made a correction for recency.

All in all it is fascinating to wander through their tables and graphs and see where my personal favorites fell. One criticism I have is that there is really too much data and too many categories and too many comparisons. It would have been better to focus in more depth on fewer categories and dive deeper into the data, leaving the more esoteric areas to another volume or to the internet (they have a very nice companion website).

For everyone interested in history and interested in numerical comparisons (for any area - baseball, business, the arts, etc.) the book is highly recommended.

This blogger received a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.