Assassin Eighteen by John Brownlow (2024)
I was all set to give Assassin Eighteen two-and-a-half stars. This thriller about the world’s most infamous assassin pulled out of retirement and forced to confront a secret from his past that has shocking ramifications for his present is rife with clichés. Not bad clichés, mind you, but still, precisely the sort of thing you’d expect from this sort of novel. But then there’s a part towards the end, when the titular assassin links up with some hackers to take down the ultra-racist big bad, that had me smiling in the same way that Hackers makes me smile. The cyber lingo is obviously dumbed down for general audiences, but it added a fun nerdy element to all the globe-trotting, espionage, and assassinating.
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