383 reviews for:

The Kill Artist

Daniel Silva

3.77 AVERAGE

miguelferreira's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous mysterious tense

defarge66's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous challenging dark informative sad fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

dustin_o's review against another edition

4.25

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

ncalv05's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

scottbails13's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous dark emotional medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

hngryctrpllr's review against another edition

4.0

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced

eithan_arellius's review against another edition

---

Boring....

sarahkneumeier's review against another edition

0.5

challenging mysterious slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

major_sholto's review against another edition

2.0

---

I heard Daniel Silva being interviewed on NPR and listened to the callers fawning over his books. Being a big fan of taut modern thrillers, I added his first Gabriel Allon book, "The Kill Artist" to my "to read" list.

Sometimes books suffer by juxtaposition. "The Kill Artist" was a decent thriller but it didn't measure up to the recent thrillers by Stieg Larsson. Having recently finished "The [b:Girl with the Dragon Tattoo|2429135|The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium, #1)|Stieg Larsson|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1275608878s/2429135.jpg|1708725]" and the "Girl who Played with Fire" I kept thinking how engaged I was while reading them and how indifferent I was about this book. In fact, I took a break in the middle of "The Kill Artist" to read another book.

The writing was serviceable, but bland. The characters were somewhat flat and uninteresting. Again, in comparison, I would take Michael Blomkvist over Garbriel Allon and Lisbeth Salander over Jacqueline Delacroix for complex, fully-realized characters.

One little pet-peeve (and this might be a minor spoiler...): the story involves a recent Palestinian/Israeli peace deal and Yasser Arafat is a main character that makes an appearance toward the end. What baffled me was Silva's decision to use a fictitious U.S. President named James Beckwith. It was so distracting. I could just imagine Sam Waterston entering the room.

After reading the "The Kill Artist," I'm not sure I will continue on with this series, even though I understand the "English Assassin" is pretty good.

sarahfdavis's review against another edition

3.5

tense slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes