Onyx reviews: The Face of the Assassin by David Lindsey

Faces form the central metaphor in Austin writer David Lindsey's new spy thriller The Face of the Assassin. One character's face was altered to conceal his identity, another's face was surgically removed and a third's is crucial to a complex plot.

Paul Bern is a facial reconstruction expert. He uses descriptions provided by crime victims and an understanding of human biometrics to sculpt or computer model realistic facsimiles of suspects. He can also accurately reconstruct a person's outward appearance given only a skull and the deceased's ethnicity. While his forensics work is usually applied to criminal investigations, his reputation occasionally attracts other commissions.

His profession, though, is a quirky plot-driving device that has little to do with the story. Paul is like a character in a Hitchcock thriller, thrust into an enigmatic situation with only a vague understanding of who the players are and what each wants. He knows only that he's been enlisted to help the CIA flush out Ghazi Baida, a terrorist organizer living in Mexico City, who they plan to assassinate. Even before he's sent to Mexico for intensive debriefing, though, Paul is thrown for a loop when something about his past is revealed-and the way in which it is disclosed is chosen for maximum effect. Vicente Mondragon, horrifically disfigured and obsessed, takes no chances obtaining Paul's cooperation, fabricating intelligence that could be used to place him in seemingly compromising circumstances. By the time Paul realizes that their strategies seem excessive for a completely legitimate operation, it's too late.

His face is the only asset valued by the clandestine, quasi-official organization operating in Mexico. All they want him to do is show up at certain places and times to convey an impression. His personal risk factor is supposed to be minimal.

Schemes like this seldom go as planned, and Paul is soon involved on an intensely personal level, paddling desperately to keep his prized head above water. The people on both sides—multiple sides, really—have numerous hidden agendas and Paul never knows who he can trust. The only person who seems fully on his side is beautiful and lethally resourceful Susana Mejia, who knows his face but not the man behind it.

David Lindsey's publishing career has had its ups and downs. His earliest novels were local favorites because of their accurate depiction of Houston and its environs. Mercy drew national attention and was also adapted for the screen. Subsequent books garnered less notice, except with his most ardent fans. However, after the strangely experimental Animosity, Lindsey has been progressively returning to prominence with a series of standalone Ludlum-esque thrillers that take advantage of the new reality of espionage in the post-Cold War era-especially post-9/11.

The Face of the Assassin is filled with cleverly crafted suspense. It's a true page-turner. Lindsey may have pushed his metaphor a little too hard—to have so many characters with "face" issues collide as they do stretches credibility—but he can be forgiven this indulgence when he combines it with such a smart plot. He has many secrets in his arsenal and he doesn't reserve them all for the book's ending, which makes the novel a series of rewarding disclosures and new threats, many of which readers won't anticipate.