It’s been a few months since I read Assassin’s Anonymous by Rob Hart, so bear with me. To start, I have to admit I never imagined I’d gravitate towards this book, or enjoy it as much as I did. There were, of course, things I didn’t like, but let’s get into that later. There will be spoilers!
Synopsis
Assassin’s Anonymous is about an average-looking white man (the narrator’s words, which he mentions many times throughout the book) named Mark who has worked as an assassin for many years and decides to quit after a tragic event takes place. He now attends Assassin’s Anonymous meetings with a group of five other assassins who have decided to leave that lifestyle behind, in the group includes Kenji, Mark’s Japanese sponsor and best friend he met during a mission years ago.
After an AA meeting, Mark is locking up when a Russian assassin attacks him. From that point on, Mark embarks on a journey to find out who sent The Russian while trying (oh so very hard ) to stick to his commitment to nonviolence. It turns out Mark is the best in his field and is famously known as The Pale Horse. No one, not even his AA friends, know Mark’s true identity.
Positives
I enjoyed Hart’s ability to portray Mark/The Pale Horse as a ruthless killer with a dark mind while also peppering in running jokes. On his journey to unveil who sent The Russian after him, many people uncover The Pale Horse’s identity, which is almost always followed by comments like “Always figured you’d be more of a Jason Statham type…”(157), poking fun at his average harmless appearance. Hart does a good job at connecting with his audience through this running joke. I mean, who doesn’t want to be a badass unstoppable killer, average looks notwithstanding?
On a darker note, Mark also encounters dozens of people whose lives he marred as The Pale Horse; people, to his horror, he barely recognizes. This aspect of the book put us right into Mark’s guilt and inability to live with himself. At an out-of-town AA meeting, he meets Lavigne, a French assassin with a tragic deformity on his face, only to find out The Pale Horse caused it. Lavigne admits that The Pale Horse is the only person he’d readily abandon his sobriety to kill. Another ex-assassin chimes in and says “[The Pale Horse] is the one person I would throw this all away for,” to which Mark realizes in horror that he doesn’t even recognize her (141). Mark eventually finds out almost everyone in the room wants to kill him for the pain he’s caused, which shatters his hope that he could ever leave his past behind.
Dislikes
My biggest disappointment was Kenji’s death. At the end of the book, Mark is fighting for his life and losing against the man who sent The Russian after him (Don’t worry, I won’t spoil this big reveal). Kenji, who’d been gone most of the book, steps in and dies to save Mark’s life. Kenji was beautifully written and had a heart of gold. Kenji dying for his friend was a beautiful gesture. On the other hand with Mark constantly mentioning his whiteness throughout the book only for Kenji to die for him deeply landed wrong with me. Mark’s whiteness gets dangled in front of the reader the entire novel as he takes out terrorists from the Middle East (which, in my opinion, was also insensitive and perpetuating stereotypes), only to have his life spared at the expense of his practically perfect friend of color. Would Mark have proven his loyalty to Kenji in this capacity?
I’ve seen this dynamic time and time again in other works of fiction (i.e.: The Vampire Diaries, where Bonnie is constantly sacrificing her well-being and the well-being of her family to save Elena, her white best friend. In eight seasons, this dynamic is never reversed; Elena, always crying that her friend is in pain, never puts her own life on the line for her.) Why couldn’t Mark have died for Kenji? I think that ending would have made the book more powerful. Did the author ever consider it? These are questions I’d like to ask him.
To his credit, when Mark meets Valencia, a Mexican assassin, he mistakenly assumes Valencia was working for the cartel, and he immediately calls out his assumption simply because Valencia’s Mexican. This shows that the author has some self-awareness, but this unfortunately doesn’t make up for Kenji’s death and how Mark self-describes almost the entire novel.
Rating
I’d give this book at 3.35/5. It was a great read, a page-turner, and the final reveal at the end was jaw-dropping. If you’ve read it, let me know what you think in the comments.