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Birth of an Assassin
- Narrated by: Dennis Kleinman
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
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Birth of an Assassin
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Summary
Amidst a murky underworld of flesh-trafficking, prostitution, and institutionalized corruption, elite soldier Jez Kornfeld is thrown into a world where nothing is what it seems, nobody can be trusted, and everything can be violently torn from him.
Ordered to disperse and arrest a crowd of Jewish demonstrators in Red Square, Jez is dismayed to find his sisters in their ranks. He sneaks them from under the noses of the secret police, but in doing so he has put his own security at risk; he has to get them out of the USSR. They cross into the Ukraine to a port on the Black Sea and he bribes passage for them from Soviet soil. Jez is happy in the knowledge that his sisters are safe, but he is unaware that his every move has been observed and that he has set in motion a chain of events that will plunge his life into a headlong battle to stay alive.
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What listeners say about Birth of an Assassin
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Norma Miles
- 05-04-19
The future starts here.
Since childhood, young Jesse Kornfeld's one ambition had been to be a soldier. Jewish, growing up in a rural area of Russia, the only son in a family of four siblings, he had listened to his father's stories and anecdotal advice until, at 15, still small and scrawny, he set out for Moscow to enlist. Given the fitting synopsis given, there is no need to further advance the story.
Birth of an Assassin is an intelligently written thriller told in the traditional spy story format, making it both detailed and fast paced. Characterisation is minimal but sufficient, the reader taking the natures of the protagonists from the fast advancing story. And it is the story which holds centre stage as Jez fights against corruption, betrayal and for the love that might have been, himself an unwitting pawn in a greater conspiracy.
Narration is by Dennis Kleinman, whose pleasant on the ear British voice fits perfectly with the novel. As well as reading with appropriate pacing, with eloquence and good intonation, he also gives separate voicing to the various protagonists, and never goes over the top emotionally as he relays the text. A good performance and well suited to the book.
A most enjoyable listen, and one which, I hope, will become the first of an ongoing series.
I was fortunate in being freely gifted with a complimentary copy of Birth of an Assassin by the rights holder, at my request, via Audiobook Boom. Thank you. It was a satisfying adventure, well rounded and involving which I would certainly recommend to fans of historically based spy and military thrillers. Or anyone who simply enjoys a good, exciting read.
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Overall3 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story3 out of 5 stars
- J Smith
- 13-08-18
Piqued my interest
Definitely enough to make me want to finish the series and find out what happens next.
A good story with plenty of intrigue and twists and turns!
Dennis is definitely a good reader and I enjoyed listening to the story but found his characters didn’t vary much from each other, so was sometimes confused as to who was speaking and was a little disappointed that there wasn’t a hint of Russian accent used despite all characters being Russian. This wouldn’t stop me from listening to him again though.
This is an honest review of a free review copy
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance3 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Mille
- 27-09-18
Fast-pacing and well-written story
Having been born in Poland in the times, when the Russian influence has been felt and hated on the daily basis and when Russian as a foreign language was obligatory to learn at school for all children – it felt not that comfortable to be sucked into a story of the times when the regime held the grip of the giant country of the Soviet Union. It felt uncomfortable, but nevertheless I felt hooked to the story. The language is vibrant, and the story is presented in a way, that it becomes alive. There is a suspense in the book that, together with the spy-story atmosphere as well as the quick pace of the story, makes it entirely ‘s unputdownable. It’s a coming-of-age story with a twist: first a boy, then a soldier, and then, a deadly force.
I was not too thrilled with the narrator, though. Dennis Kleinman’s way of reading and my ears don’t seem to match. But the story was good enough for me to listen to the whole book despite my not liking the narrator.
An observation: Petrichova, being a man, should be called Petrichov. The A at the end of the surname suggests it’s a woman, not a man.
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