The Perfect Assassin

April 3, 2006
Larsen's competent debut has many of the right ingredients for a successful spy thriller: plenty of action, technical detail that would do Tom Clancy proud, and a hero with almost superhuman skills. When Christine Palmer, an American doctor sailing solo across the Atlantic, retrieves the almost lifeless body of David Slaton in the middle of the ocean, Slaton commandeers her small boat and demands she deliver him to England. A member of Kidon (Mossad's special assassination team), Slaton is the sole survivor of a ship that sank with a super-secret cargo-a pair of unaccounted for nuclear weapons. Double agents within Mossad want to kill Slaton before he uncovers their convoluted plot to use the weapons to undermine Israel's international support. Needless to say, they're soon after Palmer as well. What's missing is that no character, except for Palmer, has an inner life.