- Ferrigno, Robert.
Sins of the Assassin.
New York: Scribner, 2008.
ISBN 978-1-4165-3765-6.
-
Here we have the eagerly awaited sequel to the author's
compelling thriller
Prayers for the Assassin
(March 2006), now billed as the second volume in
the eventual Assassin Trilogy. The book in the middle of a
trilogy is often the most difficult to write. Readers are
already acquainted with the setting, scenario, and many of the
main characters, and aren't engaged by the novelty of discovering
something entirely new. The plot usually involves
ramifying the events of the first installment, while
further developing characters and introducing new ones, but
the reader knows at the outset that, while there may be
subplots which are resolved, the book will end with the
true climax of the story reserved for the final volume.
These considerations tend to box in an author, and pulling
off a volume two which is satisfying even when you know you're
probably going to have to wait another two years to see how
it all comes out is a demanding task, and one which Robert
Ferrigno accomplishes magnificently in this novel.
Set three years after Prayers, the former United
States remains divided into a coast-to-coast Islamic
Republic, with the Christian fundamentalist Bible Belt
in Texas and the old South, Mormon Territories and
the Nevada Free State in the West, and the independent
Nuevo Florida in the southeast, with low intensity warfare
and intrigue at the borders. Both northern
and southern frontiers are under pressure from green
technology secular Canada and the expansionist
Aztlán Empire, which is chipping away at the
former U.S. southwest.
Something is up in the Bible Belt, and retired Fedayeen
shadow warrior Rakkim Epps returns to his old haunts
in the Belt to find out what's going on and prevent
a potentially destabilising discovery from shifting the
balance of power on the continent. He is accompanied by
one of the most unlikely secret agents ever, whose story of
self-discovery and growth is a delightful theme
throughout. This may be a dystopian future, but it
is populated by genuine heroes and villains, all of whom are
believable human beings whose character and lives have made them who
they are. There are foul and despicable characters to be sure, but
also those you're inclined to initially dismiss as evil but discover
through their honour and courage to be good people making the best of
bad circumstances.
This novel is substantially more “science fiction-y”
than Prayers—a number of technological
prodigies figure in the tale, some of which strike this
reader as implausible for a world less than forty years
from the present, absent a
technological singularity
(which has not happened in this timeline), and
especially with the former United States and Europe having
turned into technological backwaters. I am not, however,
going to engage in my usual quibbling: most of the items
in question are central to the plot and mysteries the
reader discovers as the story unfolds, and simply to
cite them would be major spoilers. Even if I put them inside
a spoiler warning, you'd be tempted to read them anyway,
which would detract from your enjoyment of the book, which
I don't want to do, given how much I enjoyed it. I will say
that one particular character has what may be potentially
the most itchy bioenhancement in all of modern fiction, and perhaps
that contributes to his extravagantly foul disposition.
In addition to the science fictional aspects, the supernatural
appears to enter the story on several occasions—or maybe
not—we'll have to wait until the next book to know for sure.
One thing you don't want to do is to read this book
before first reading
Prayers for the Assassin.
There is sufficient background information mentioned in passing
for the story to be comprehensible and enjoyable stand-alone, but
if you don't understand the character and history of Redbeard,
the dynamics of the various power centres in the Islamic
Republic, or the fragile social equilibrium among the various
communities within it, you'll miss a great deal of the richness
of this future history. Fortunately, a
mass market paperback edition of the
first volume is now available.
You can read the first chapter of this book online at the
author's Web site.
March 2008 