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A review by matt2thefuture
The Kill Artist by Daniel Silva
1.0
Daniel Silva has a large audience for his layered spy thrillers, but I just don't think I'm in it.
The Kill Artist read like a sophisticated, art house film that knows its audience is fine if it meanders to its point which will unfold in its own time. Like a soup on warm, it was getting somewhere, but it wasn't getting there nearly quick enough to hold my interest.
The premise intrigues me and the protagonist is unique enough to support that, but unfortunately, in the first quarter of the book, he's a supporting player at best. The other "supporting" characters in the book were either interesting once far too much time was spent getting to know them or flat and not showing why they were needed at all. Again, the layers of Artist could've revealed that Silva was constructing a complicated tapestry that would weave together in the end so the reader could step back and appreciate how complicated everything was. But the pace was sluggish enough that I couldn't get there.
It felt more than anything that Artist wasn't about those characters or that plot or even that slow building pace--it was about the complexity of world politics. Which, while Silva achieved that feeling, wasn't really why I picked up the book in the first place. I'll admit I was looking for a cool spy in exotic locales and some interesting character work. I may have eventually gotten the last if I managed to hang, but Artist felt inaccessible enough to me by the time I put it down that I doubt I'll ever know.
Can't recommend, but fans of films (never read the novels) like The Constant Gardner, The Tailor or Panama, or even Michael Clayton (yes, I know the last is not a spy film) or other slow-burning spy fare might this to their liking.
The Kill Artist read like a sophisticated, art house film that knows its audience is fine if it meanders to its point which will unfold in its own time. Like a soup on warm, it was getting somewhere, but it wasn't getting there nearly quick enough to hold my interest.
The premise intrigues me and the protagonist is unique enough to support that, but unfortunately, in the first quarter of the book, he's a supporting player at best. The other "supporting" characters in the book were either interesting once far too much time was spent getting to know them or flat and not showing why they were needed at all. Again, the layers of Artist could've revealed that Silva was constructing a complicated tapestry that would weave together in the end so the reader could step back and appreciate how complicated everything was. But the pace was sluggish enough that I couldn't get there.
It felt more than anything that Artist wasn't about those characters or that plot or even that slow building pace--it was about the complexity of world politics. Which, while Silva achieved that feeling, wasn't really why I picked up the book in the first place. I'll admit I was looking for a cool spy in exotic locales and some interesting character work. I may have eventually gotten the last if I managed to hang, but Artist felt inaccessible enough to me by the time I put it down that I doubt I'll ever know.
Can't recommend, but fans of films (never read the novels) like The Constant Gardner, The Tailor or Panama, or even Michael Clayton (yes, I know the last is not a spy film) or other slow-burning spy fare might this to their liking.