Kirkus Reviews (Print)
January 1, 2015, Thursday

THE ASSASSIN

SECTION: FICTION

Cussler and Scott (The Bootlegger, 2014, etc.) send detective Isaac
Bell on his eighth historical action-adventure, this time tackling the
“Octopus,” otherwise known as Standard Oil.The authors turn the time
machine to 1905, giving Bell a chance to romance the beauties Edna,
“deep as the ocean,” and Nellie, who “dazzles like a kaleidoscope,”
daughters of Bill Matters, a former Oil City, Pennsylvania, wildcatter
co-opted into joining up as another John D. Rockefeller minion even
though he was never “one of the boys.” Van Dorn Detective Agency top
investigator Bell has been hired by the Sherman Anti-Trust
Corporations Commission to investigate Standard Oil.

But things turn deadly. Spike Hopewell, Matters’ old partner, is
assassinated in a Kansas oil field. Then there’s a Texas oil patch
shooting, and other supposed accidental deaths are revealed as
murders. Is the monopolist Rockefeller, who prides himself on dealing
“fairly and squarely and aboveboard,” resorting to murder to preserve
the Octopus? Confused over whether he prefers Edna or Nellie, Bell
goes undercover as Rockefeller’s bodyguard and hits the road-Kansas,
Texas, Washington, D.C., Russia’s Baku oil fields-and gets embroiled
in shoot-’em-ups between Tatars, Armenians, Social Democrats and bank
bandits. Cussler loves historical factoids: The Pennsylvania-built
Baldwin decapod engine was an oil-burner rather than coal-fired; a
Cleveland-built Peerless Tonneau car made as good a bribe as a
Rolls-Royce; and there’s a difference between suffragette and
suffragist. The usual Van Dorn detectives are useful background
characters, Bell survives a balloon ride into the near-stratosphere,
the psychopathic assassin gets comeuppance, and there’s a
well-choreographed flaming finale at New Jersey’s Constable Hook
refinery. Another action-movie-paced entertainment from Cussler’s
historical-thriller series.

Publication Date: 2015-03-03
Publisher: Putnam
Stage: Adult
ISBN: 978-0-399-17175-8
Price: $28.95
Author: Cussler, Clive

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress