Galley Talk

Julie Welter, Events Coordinator, Joseph-Beth Booksellers, Charlotte, N.C.

by Staff -- Publishers Weekly, 5/29/2006

I picked up The Assassin's Gallery by David L. Robbins (Bantam, July 25) because it has great quotes from Steve Berry and Lee Child, and a fascinating premise: that there's an assassin out to kill FDR. The Secret Service is aware of the plot and brings in a Scottish specialist in the history and weaponry of assassins, Professor Lammeck, to help investigate. I don't usually read thrillers like this, but what kept me hooked was that it also involves a young female spy from Persia, who passes as a mulatto and experiences life in 1940s Washington, D.C., through the eyes of a servant, while also going undercover at embassy parties. I read it in about three hours and went straight to the history books to see if things could have happened that way. I would sell it to anyone who likes Vince Flynn or Dan Brown, or readers who liked Herman Wouk's The Winds of War.