The cost of (ending the) living: an assassin's conscience

books:


	• Sins of the Assassin: A Novel Robert Ferrigno Scribner, 2008 - 400 pages average customer review:based on 17 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

No Jihad Cola In The Belt

I will be honest here, one of the main reasons I HAD to read this book, was so I could see what the Bible Belt was like in Rakime's world. Ultimately I was thourghly impressed with Ferrigno's vision of the Dystopia America has degraded into. The mythology associated with both sides, the Wild West society of the Belt coupled with the semi civilized, totalitarian East, along with rumors (SPOILER) of a reunification.

Sins of the Assassin is just that, our man Rakime is slipping into an abyss of sin (not the biblical variety, more akin to sanity), in the beginning things with Rakime seem normal, but as we progress, things are not as they seem & ultimately the very reason for his slip is revealed little by little.
Rakime is tasked with venturing into the Belt, something he alone excels at and it is here along with scenes from Seatle we realize that, "literally divided we fall." Each side is in dire straits, and if something drastic is not done then both sides will crumble, differences in ideology or not.
So sit back relax, open your Jihad Cola & watch images in your mind's eye of Branch Davidian theme parks, an American Atlantis, giant carbon skinned soldiers, smoke engulfed cities and the Old Man's next bid for power.

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The cost of (ending the) living: an assassin's conscience

I finished the prequel, "Prayers for the Assassin," (also reviewed by me last week on Amazon) and immediately started this second installment of what will be three thrillers set around 2040, when North America's split between incursions from Canada, an Aztlan Empire, and between the Islamic Republic over most of what was the Union and the Bible Belt over the South.

Ferrigno's more relaxed this time around in telling the adventures of Rakkim Epps' second mission, into the Belt in search of a secret weapon as as undercover "shadow warrior." Less time's devoted, however, to stalwarts from the first book, such as police chief Colarusso, Rakkim's wife Sarah and her political ties and her research into the causes for the Republic's spying and diplomacy, or the Black Robe minions who terrorize the fundamentalist Muslims. Instead, the mission itself takes up more of the story. You meet his new sidekick, Leo, a likably annoying mental mastermind. You also find Rakkim squaring off against the Colonel, his new nemesis Gravenholtz, the conniving femme fatale Baby, and an ex-English prof, Crews, with his ragtag band of fanatics. Shekels of Tyre, Etch-a-Sketches, snake handling, and the aura of Darwin (a welcome if haunting spirit from the first novel) float over this tale.

I admired the encounter at the Church of the Mists; this provided a nearly mystical pilgrimage that worked well as a counter to the bloody encounters and cruel regimes that lord over a cowed population ground down by corrupt Texas Rangers, press-gangs, foreign exploiters, and enviromentally disastrous corporate entities despoiling what's left of the South's natural resources in an era of the Big Warm and when most of what was the U.S. is backsliding into a Third World economy and class system. I also think that we have not seen the last of the splendidly named Getty Andalou in regards to the political shenanigans that lurk behind the scenes in the Beltway.

You should read "Prayers" first. There's references to angelic flutters, arcane methods of eliminating your enemy, or strawberry shakes, for example, that will not mean as much otherwise. The book reads more rapidly if you already have a grasp of the ideological tensions and the social collapses that have occurred previously in "Prayers." Religious certainties again receive brisk skepticism, but there's also a respect for decency that permeates the decisions made by key characters when under attack, morally as well as physically.

Finally, showing Ferrigno's growing ease with his bitterly infected milieu here. This book reveals maturity, as main characters are tested as to their loyalties. There's an added depth about the sadness and necessity of death, and the price exacted on assassins and hired killers, as well as the fragility of lives lived more morally in this harsh and sinister dystopia. You may not expect a consideration of dignity at the root of this fast-paced thriller, but this enriches this intelligently told narrative. The author writes with a steady focus here. I miss some of the epigrammatic asides of "Prayers," but "Sins" moves with more economy and a narrower scope. Also, the style moves steadily. It's sustained, less edgy if not less cynical in parts. Rakkim appears to be coming to a realization of his limits, and he seems more serious and less flippant three years after his earlier mission.

I liked this novel as much as the first one, but I found the plot of "Sins" easier to follow, with fewer characters, far fewer subplots, and no tangents from the main story. The climactic scenes did occur rather suddenly, but I suppose this fits the genre. (I'd rank this higher than the four stars I gave "Prayers," nevertheless, there is a slight tonal tilt and a hurried summation around the compressed climax. Yet, as I cannot judge the pacing of the end wholly until I read the final part of the trilogy-- I sense the narrative balance may be restored.) Perhaps more will be explained as to the machinations of the Old One vs. the Black Robes vs. the Fedayeen command, not to mention some of the Bible Belt contacts in deep cover, in the last book, so my criticism is on hold here!

Ferrigno again makes you cringe and makes you ponder the consequences of strategies already glimpsed, on pp. 68-69, presciently in our current culture's regard for Islamist sympathies. The Old One's long-term plans may already be coming to fruition. Read those pages and you may reconsider very current events!

Freed from the fascinating but admittedly complex setting-up of his near-future realpolitik and its religious tyrannies and social complications that underlay the exposition of the intricate storyline in "Prayers," there's much more room now for action. It's satisfyingly tense, and more militaristic in parts, as you get the sense that Ferrigno's itching to explore the fog of war and larger-scale maneuvers. His battle set between warring factions in a Southern forest makes for exciting reading, and the scene feels real, rooted in his understanding of how men behave under fire and how easily careful strategy gives way to bravado, fear, and greed.

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Wake up & smell the coffee!!!

Both Sins of and Prayers for the Assassin are a must-read for all -- esp. all the libs who keep insisting that Islam is a peaceful religion and that we should pull our troops out of Iraq. The first thing that will grab you is the map of the United States -- we're no longer united, and most of the states are now under Muslim rule. Talk about a punch in the gut! Set in the not so distant future, the books take you through a totally plausible scenario (which is why it is so scary and why we, as a nation, should wake up & smell the coffee!) whereby true Muslims (who laugh at the Westerners who keep insisting that terrorists have hijacked a religion of peace) are out to conquer the world -- bit by bit, person by person, country by country. There are heroes and villains aplenty -- and all the heroes aren't Catholic or Jewish and all the villains aren't Muslim. The plots are well developed, as are the characters, and it isn't a leap from today's headlines to see where cloning, eugenics, and political correctness will get us (trust me, it isn't pretty). An excellent read for fun and for thinking, I'm anxiously waiting (and waiting, and waiting) for the third book in the trilogy.

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Welcome to the slaughter, ya'll!

"Sins of the Assassin" continues the story of Rakkim Epps, a former shadow warrior living in mid-21st century America. Nuclear attacks on several major cities precede a second civil war, and the former country is broken into two major factions, the Islamic Republic and the Bible Belt, being primarily the South.

Rakkim must venture into the South to inflirate the stronghold of the Colonel, who is busy searching for an early superweapon. Accompanying him is Leo, the nerdy 19-year-old with a technologically enhanced brain, able to meld with computers.

In this story, we now see life on the other half. The Bible Belt is a loose assortment of warlords, with a vague capital in Atlanta. Foreign businesses pillage the Belt for its resources and cheap labor. Meanwhile, the residents of the Belt entertain themselves with a Mt. Carmal amusement park, complete with weekly reenactments of the 51st day of the siege. And everyone has guns.

Meanwhile, the Old One, the superwealthy Muslim fanatic continues to pursue Rakkim and his family. It was he who was responsible for the attacks which split America initially.

This book, said to be the second of a trilogy, explains some of the mysteries behind "Prayers," but fails to answer others. Like, how does the Christian-majority America convert to Islam? And how do two nations with near-"Star Trek" levels of technology are unable to build proper roads or cars?

Look forward to the conclusion of the story.

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Sins of the Assassin

Show me the future.

We ask it all the time, and I don't mean tea leaves and Tarot cards. We check the weather forecast and market trends, maybe glance at horoscopes. Just about everyone gives in to that little tickle of curiosity.

Tell me what's going to happen.

Lucky hunches and divine inspiration aside, nobody can predict the future, but there are some who have a gift for intuiting plausible scenarios. Some of these are writers, and of these, a very few are very good writers. They hear the ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times," and smile. Times get interesting and they start thinking.

What if...?

"Moseby needed to slow down. His haste stirred up a gray confetti of silt, disintegrating paper, and pulverized glass from the neon sign that once flashed OYSTER PO' BOYS, TREAT YO MOUTH."

That's the opening to "Sins of the Assassin," the second novel of a trilogy set forty years in the future. Those who haven't read the first book, "Prayers for the Assassin," can enjoy "Sins" by itself. ("Prayers," too, stands on its own.)

In "Sins," we're underwater with a scavenger who's after a specific Greek bust, a "stone queen" from one of New Orleans' great old houses. She was a "beautiful woman... her expression distant and dreamy, as though she had seen something that no one else had ever seen, and the sight had changed her. The world would never be quite fine enough for the woman now."

Nor for anyone else in this part of the country: Moseby is sifting through the dissolving debris of one of America's great cities, submerged by hurricanes and floods that finished what Katrina started. But Moseby is looking for a Greek bust from the Hellenic period, itself a vanished culture. The queen and her lost-world gaze is for me an Atlantean image, and the gray silt evokes the ashes of Pompeii.

So much of what we've built has sunk into historical background noise over the centuries, yet we're still here, still building. It's the nature of the species to pick up and dust off and move on.

Mr. Ferrigno has posited a world ruptured by terrorism, but he occupies himself as a writer with how people take heart and carry on. Some of his people are exquisitely tough, some are preternaturally evil. He knows what tears people apart and what puts them back together again.

And he can write. One guy's eyes are "the color of mop water," another's "boiled with a twisted intelligence." And my all-time favorite: "Wolf eyes under a full moon. All pupil." Perfect.

Now here's the heart of the book, perhaps of the whole trilogy, in abstract (it gives nothing of the plot away):

"This church... this little church... this is where God goes when he can't bear what's become of the world."

Mr. Ferrigno's presentation of this grave new world is scrupulously fair-minded and balanced, as is his treatment of religious affiliation. "Church" here transcends the Christian connotation; it could be mosque or temple. There's one word for all of them, as he writes elsewhere: sanctuary.

Consider that word for a moment. It's a form of shelter that offers safety and surcease, an inviolable refuge, a home place for the spirit. As Mr. Ferrigno has it -- rightly, I believe -- it's where even the deity might go for a moment's peace. With all the focus on dogma and ritual, on scriptural interpretation and the heavenly rewards of strict orthodoxy, it's hard to remember that the heart of any place of worship is that simple enveloping quiet, where we clear the mind and focus on matters greater than ourselves.

Make no mistake, "Sins of the Assassin" is a page-turner. It takes hold from the first drowned-city scenes and doesn't let go even after you close the book. But there's also intelligence and wit here, depth of feeling and insight into character.

And for this reader, living in these interesting times, there was in its pages a sort of sanctuary.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

Colossal in concept, dazzlingly plotted, filled with vivid, jaw-dropping violence, Sins of the Assassin confirms Robert Ferrigno as the modern master of the futuristic thriller.

In the second book of Ferrigno's spectacular Assassin Trilogy, Rakkim Epps battles radical fundamentalist forces in a futuristic America, now a divided blood-soaked dystopia. Will he survive? Can America ever be unified again?

The year is 2043. New York and Washington, D.C., have been leveled by nuclear bombs. New Orleans is submerged beneath fifty feet of water and treasure hunters scavenge its watery ruins. The United States no longer exists, and in its place two new nations maintain an uneasy coexistence.

To the west stretches the Islamic Republic, seemingly governed by a moderate president but hollowed from within by the violent, repressive Black Robes, a shadowy fundamentalist group intent on crushing all those who do not follow Allah's path. In this frightening world, freedom is controlled by the state, and non-Muslims are either second-class citizens, hidden underground, exiled, or executed.

To the east and south lies the Christian Bible Belt, itself torn by conflict from warring factions, each claiming to be more righteous than the others. Meanwhile the former United States is being nibbled away at the edges: South Florida, known as "Nuevo Florida," is independent; the Aztlán Empire, formerly Mexico, encroaches from the south; and Canada has laid claim to huge swaths of territory along the United States's former northern border.

What stability exists between the warring empires is threatened when the president of the Islamic Republic discovers that a Bible Belt warlord, known simply as the Colonel, is searching for a superweapon hidden inside a remote mountain decades earlier by the old United States regime. Rakkim Epps, retired shadow warrior, is sent on a perilous mission to infiltrate the Belt and steal or destroy the weapon. Accompanying Rakkim is Leo, a naive nineteen-year-old whose technologically enhanced brain is crucial to their success.Together they sneak through the Belt, a lawless territory where a bloodthirsty, drug-addled militia prepares for the End-Times.

When Rakkim and Leo finally reach the Colonel's mountain, Epps is forced to rely on his shadow warrior's ability to kill any and all who would halt his quest. Opposing him is the Colonel's enforcer, a sadistic, carbon-skinned killer named Gravenholtz, and the Colonel's wife, the alluring, sexually rapacious Baby, who wants -- and gets -- more of everything. Meanwhile, the Old One, the ancient and immensely rich Muslim fanatic who seeks to rule both American nations, plots his attack from the safety of his ocean liner. Rakkim Epps, he realizes, must be stopped, controlled, or killed.

A terrific stand-alone read, Sins of the Assassin is a cinematic feast of action and plot, and verifies Robert Ferrigno's Assassin Trilogy as a monumental imaginative work of suspense.

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