Daniel Silva

This is the fourth in the series about Gabriel Allon, former Mossad operative and current art restorer. I liked this one by far the best because it contained more history and less Israeli Bond girls caricatures.

When a friend is severely injured in a bomb blast, Gabriel defies authorities and returns to Vienna, a city that haunts his past. An informant points him toward Herr Vogel, an Austrian businessman who may have been a Nazi war criminal. As Gabriel gets closer to the truth, he also show more learns more about events in his mother's life during the Holocaust. Is hunting down former Nazis still relevant today? What does justice look like for these elderly war criminals?

This book references heavily Aktion 1005, the Nazis' attempt to destroy the millions of bodies that would serve as evidence of their crimes. Although I had read about this in books on Treblinka and Sobibor, I hadn't realized that it began in the Ukraine. It also touches on Bishop Alois Hudal's Ratlines for helping Nazis escape after the war, and Reinhard Gehlen, who went from being an intelligence agent for the Nazis to running intelligence operations for the American CIA and West Germany against the Russians. Lots of controversial topics that are not well-known provide the backdrop to the action. I had nearly given up on this series, but this book has definitely hooked me again. show less

A friend of mine loaned me this book saying that the principal character, Gabriel Allon, was “the Israeli James Bond,” but Gabriel Allon seems to me to be an even more unbelievable character. Allon, besides being a super spy, is also one of the world’s five top art restorers, a single-handed (“expert”) sailor of a two-masted ketch, an opera lover, a skilled auto mechanic (old MG), and a biblical expert. In addition, he speaks “flawless” Arabic, whereas all the Arabs in the book show more speak it with some kind of recognizable national accent. Even when building a fire, “[h]e seemed capable of holding the hot wood for a long time without discomfort.” Sure.

I like to suspend belief a little when I read an adventure story, but Silva’s characters are just over the top. Tariq, the villain, takes five days to escape from Paris to Samos after an assassination, but on the way he manages to seduce three different women, driving all of them to multiple orgasms, needless to say.

The main female character, madly in love with Allon, is a super model of course. She “worked with good looking men every day in her overt life, but there was something about Gabriel that took her breath away….She decided she was going to make love to this man before the operation was over.” Naturally, how could it be otherwise?

The story takes place amid the interminable Arab-Israeli conflict, and the author gives both sides plenty of reasons to hate each other. Nonetheless, there can be no doubt that Silva’s sympathies lie with the Israelis. He has concocted a fast-paced narrative, and he even throws in a twist in the plot at the end. In the hands of a better writer, a twist is used to explain a factual anomaly in the main plot. Silva’s plot twist, however, is somewhat gratuitous in that it comes in after all the action has been resolved and isn’t necessary to make the rest of the story more believable. I guess it was an attempt at irony.

In short, I found this book too cartoonish.

(JAB) show less

This is the first time I have read a Daniel Silva novel and I was not disappointed. I'm only sorry I picked up on Gabriel Allon's eventful career so late into the novels. Gabriel Allon is a retired Israeli secret agent/assassin, living with his beautiful second wife Chiara, off the coast of Cornwall. But do secret agents ever retire? Not likely. And do art restorers ever manage to hang up their brushes? Also, not likely. For Gabriel is an art restorer as part of his cover. He also happens to show more be very good at both jobs... Long story short, the death of an art restorer known to Gabriel, as well as the theft of a previously unknown Rembrandt, catapults both Gabriel and Chiara back into the spy scene.

It's not just about art. It's about the theft of a massive fortune under the aegis of Nazi plundering; the atrocities of the Second World War; the meticulous record keeping of the rapacious German High Command (and their strategically placed satellites) that provides fatal clues sixty plus years later, and much much more. A philanthropist billionaire who isn't; a well-known investigative journalist who falls for him; nuclear weapons proliferation in Iran, and the revelation that Switzerland is not just a land of chocolate and cuckoo clocks. Its pristine surface conceals financial atrocities that the Swiss do not want exposed. All the elements add up to a superbly written, roller-coaster thriller. Intrigue, murder, politics, art and the murky depths collectors will stoop to in their blind passion; wartime secrets, greed and money! Especially money! The threat of another nuclear holocaust adds to the nail-biting tension as the book hurtles onward to a possibly apocalyptic conclusion.

I loved Gabriel's character, and Julian Isherwood comes a close second. Some of the book's personalities are necessarily lightweight, but the main players are solid and believable. The author's prose is polished and his timing impeccable. I read the book (a real one!) from cover to cover. I can't wait to start at the beginning of Gabriel's career by reading the previous books. I enjoyed the subtle way art facts (and fictions) are woven into the story, without overwhelming the reader. The author's note at the end does straighten out some intriguing possibilities. An intelligent and entertaining read, with thought-provoking messages, as well as touching upon qualities such as loyalty, friendship, determination, and compassion. Highly recommended. show less

Yet another installment of Daniel Silva's Law & Order, ripped from the headlines, series following the illustrious Gabriel Allon as Israel's superhero. This time the focus is Russia. They've been poisoning emigres in London, stealing state assets and hiding them in the West, pushing opponents out of high-rise windows in thinly disguised suicides, pampering oligarchs and targeting misinformation to topple foreign regimes. Silva never mentions Putin or Trump but the descriptions leave no doubt show more as to who he is referring to. Their partner in crime is the dirty RhineBank but in the acknowledgements Silva names Deutsche Bank as the complicit partner in all the bad stuff. Since Jan 6th occurred before this book was to be published the final chapters were hastily rewritten to fit the latest headlines. Too juicy to ignore. And the Russian link was too easy to pass up on. Q had to be Russian.

And of course there's the damsel in distress who turns out to be both a brilliant beautiful, compliance officer at RhineBank who has turned away from a life where she could have been a concert cellist to the much more lucrative world of finance. But RhineBank is more interested in lucrative profits than listening to a woman telling them there's too much risk. She eventually tires of being overruled and decides to blindly sign off on all the deals she knows she shouldn't. Too talented to get rid of she earns the right to pick her assignment. She chooses to head for the center of the dirty dealing, the so-called Russian laundromat, the division of RhineBank where the money gets laundered. She kicks things off by giving incriminating copies to a journalist known for her anti-Russian writing. Things don't go well and she and the journalist become unwitting accomplices to a Russian assassination of a wealthy Russian émigré who had gotten Gabriel and his wife out of a Russian jail. Yes Gabriel's past always pops up in the latest adventure.

Speaking of the past, many of the usual suspects make cameo appearances, Ari, Chiara, Eli, Julian, etc. And the bevy of women who've fallen for Gabriel show up. This time Sarah Bancroft seems to kick off this story, selling art to the Russian émigré, only to fade into the background. And yes Gabriel's skills as an art restorer are employed. We even get to revisit his time spent with a concert pianist who of course has never forgiven him for abandoning her. But these are sub plots, The real story is financial. Lots of hidden assets, layers of shadow corporations, and the constant trade matching. Who knew? While I'm sure that's the way the game was played they make much less interesting reading than the usual blow things up events.

But Jan 6th was just too tempting to ignore. It fit in perfectly as a plot the Russians were behind. I won't spill the beans so the real plot twist will still come as a surprise. It's a very quick read, as usual. show less