(Reviewed by Don Jung)
Joe Harris thought that his ancestors weren’t particularly interesting, as he came from a family of tailors from Riga, Latvia. His views changed though, when he met a distant relative at a convention who told him that they come from a family of paid assassins that goes back multiple generations.
As Joe researched his family’s past, we learn a different spin to the Jack the Ripper murders as this imaginative story unfolds about his great-grandfather in the 1880s. Then Joe discovered in the next generation that his father carried on the family tradition in exotic locations filled with intrigue intermixed with history of dictators and tyrants primarily in Europe and Africa.
As the torch is passed, each son initially feels it is a curse, but then it becomes an honor to carry on the family business. The characters are memorable in the way they disguise their true occupation. Each person is nervous and unassured how they can perform their task but
they somehow succeed in a world of danger. Similar to James Bond or John Wick, each
assassin has to complete his assignment using his own methods, which results in fast-paced action chapters.
When we come back to the present, our protagonist is only seventeen years old, unsure of what life has instore for him. When he decides to become a mercenary, he confronts his parents only to find out they both were retired assassins. They endorse his choice to go to combat training. He finds out his natural instincts are inherited, and he must go it alone.
Not only is The Tailor of Riga a fascinating story, but it gets you thinking about what secrets lie in your own family history back six or seven generations. The author captures an interesting era where we wonder how history could have been changed by one individual action.
