Colossal in concept, dazzlingly plotted, filled with vivid,
jaw-dropping violence, Sins of the Assassin confirms Robert Ferrigno
as the modern master of the futuristic thriller.
In the second book of Ferrigno's spectacular Assassin Trilogy, Rakkim
Epps battles radical fundamentalist forces in a futuristic America, now
a divided blood-soaked dystopia. Will he survive? Can America ever be
unified again?
The year is 2043. New York and Washington, D.C., have been leveled by
nuclear bombs. New Orleans is submerged beneath fifty feet of water and
treasure hunters scavenge its watery ruins. The United States no longer
exists, and in its place two new nations maintain an uneasy coexistence.
To the west stretches the Islamic Republic, seemingly governed by a
moderate president but hollowed from within by the violent, repressive
Black Robes, a shadowy fundamentalist group intent on crushing all those
who do not follow Allah's path. In this frightening world, freedom is
controlled by the state, and non-Muslims are either second-class
citizens, hidden underground, exiled, or executed.
To the east and south lies the Christian Bible Belt, itself torn by
conflict from warring factions, each claiming to be more righteous than
the others. Meanwhile the former United States is being nibbled away at
the edges: South Florida, known as Nuevo Florida, is independent; the
Aztlán Empire, formerly Mexico, encroaches from the south; and Canada
has laid claim to huge swaths of territory along the United States's
former northern border.
What stability exists between the warring empires is threatened when the
president of the Islamic Republic discovers that a Bible Belt warlord,
known simply as the Colonel, is searching for a superweapon hidden
inside a remote mountain decades earlier by the old United States
regime. Rakkim Epps, retired shadow warrior, is sent on a perilous
mission to infiltrate the Belt and steal or destroy the weapon.
Accompanying Rakkim is Leo, a naive nineteen-year-old whose
technologically enhanced brain is crucial to their success.Together they
sneak through the Belt, a lawless territory where a bloodthirsty,
drug-addled militia prepares for the End-Times.
When Rakkim and Leo finally reach the Colonel's mountain, Epps is forced
to rely on his shadow warrior's ability to kill any and all who would
halt his quest. Opposing him is the Colonel's enforcer, a sadistic,
carbon-skinned killer named Gravenholtz, and the Colonel's wife, the
alluring, sexually rapacious Baby, who wants -- and gets -- more of
everything. Meanwhile, the Old One, the ancient and immensely rich
Muslim fanatic who seeks to rule both American nations, plots his attack
from the safety of his ocean liner. Rakkim Epps, he realizes, must be
stopped, controlled, or killed.
A terrific stand-alone read, Sins of the Assassin is a cinematic feast
of action and plot, and verifies Robert Ferrigno's Assassin Trilogy as a
monumental imaginative work of suspense.
