The tale is about vengeance, spy craft, finance, corruption and greed. When it starts, we find Gabriel in the tan hills of Umbria, where he restores a painting and honeymoons with his new wife, Chiara. There he receives shocking news from London. The defector and former Russian intelligence officer Grigori Bulganov, who twice saved Gabriel’s life, has vanished. The British believe he has re-defected. Gabriel is certain this is wrong. What is more – he owes Grigori his life and has made him a promise:

Do you know what we do with traitors, Gabriel? Many things have changed in Russia since the fall of Communism. But the punishment for betrayal remains the same. Promise me one thing, Gabriel. Promise me I won’t end up in an unmarked grave.

He has no choice but to go to London and investigate the disappearance. There his suspicions are confirmed. And soon Gabriel and his team of operatives find themselves in a deadly conflict with one of the world’s most ruthless men: Ivan Kharkov – a man with unlimited resources. A man who is protected by people in very high places in Russian society. The hunt for Grigori, and the fight against the wily oligarch seeking vengeance at all costs, take Gabriel and his men from a quiet mews in London, to the shores of Lake Como, to the glittering streets of Geneva and Zurich, and, finally, to a heart-stopping, extremely dramatic climax in the snowbound birch forests of Russia. Gabriel has never before been tested like this.

Daniel Silva’s spy stories are excellent. And The Defector is probably his finest novel – so far, that is. It is very suspenseful, of course, but there is also humor, love, warmth and elegant prose. This really is an excellently written novel. And this, together with the smart turns in the plot and the wide array of remarkable characters together make this an exceptional book. The Defector is an outstanding spy thriller.

PS: Daniel Silva’s next book, The Rembrandt Affair (Gabriel Allon), is now ready for pre-order. It will be published in July, 2010.

©2010 The World of Books. All Rights Reserved.

The English Assassin is one of the most complex thrillers by Daniel Silva so far. The plot starts with Gabriel being sent to Zurich under a

pseudonym to restore a Raphael belonging to a prominent Swiss banker and art collector, Augustus Rolfe, but upon arriving he finds Rolfe lying in a pool of blood.

Allon locates and meets Rolfe’s daughter, Anna, who is a world-class violinist attempting to rebuild her career after an accident that nearly destroyed one of her hands. Temperamental and mistrustful, she nevertheless believes Gabriel’s story, and reveals that Rolfe owned a secret collection of priceless French Impressionist paintings, apparently stolen by his murderers.

Rapidly Gabriel Allon’s investigation uncovers a large story involving large-scale theft of art by the Nazi’s during World War II, and of bonds between Nazi Germany and Switzerland that resulted in much of the stolen art ending up in Switzerland.

At the same time, the threatening figure of the English assassin is also drawn into the vortex of the past when he stalks his assigned targets, Anna Rolfe and Gabriel Allon. Everywhere he goes, he leaves death in his wake. Just as Allon is tormented by what he feels compelled to do for his country and his personal losses, so is the Englishman ravaged by his soul.

Like Daniel Silva’s other books, especially The Kill Artist, The English Assassin balances very fascinating, well drawn characters, lots of historical detail, and international intrigue in a thought out blend. An exciting read!

Order Daniel Silva’s The English Assassin from amazon UK.

©2010 The World of Books. All Rights Reserved.

The Messenger opens in London where a professor of Middle Eastern studies is suspected of having Al-Qaeda ties. The Israeli Secret Service is on his tail when he is killed in an accident. The laptop he was carrying proves that not only was he a recruiter, but also indicates that he was involved in an intricate plot against the Vatican.

Gabon and the CIA decide they need to run an agent into the inner circle of Saudi billionaire Abdul Aziz al-Bakari who secretly finances terrorist acts. Al-Bakari is also known as “Zizi.” Zizi is a well-known supporter of Ahmed bin Shafiq, the mastermind behind a number of bombings that have taken the lives of many of the Western “infidels” whom he despises.

In The Messenger, the focus is split between Allon and a new recruit – Sarah Bancroft, an American art expert – that he grooms to place inside the circle around the Saudi Arabian billionaire Zizi. Sarah Bancroft has been provided by Allon’s friends in CIA. She has a lot of necessary talents and qualifications, but she is inexperienced and has to learn the nuts and bolts of the spy trade quickly. Her task is to provide information that can make it possible to locate the terrorist master mind Ahmed bin Shafiq.

Gabriel promises that he will protect her after she has been inserted into the group around Zizi. That, however, turns out to be much easier said than done. Zizi moves around at a fast pace, and has lots of resouces. Gabriel and his team fail, despite their professionalism and all their precautions. And, as a result, Sarah faces torture and death.

The plot of The Messenger is fast-paced and exciting, and it’s one of Silva’s strongest efforts yet. It is a very entertaining spy novel from the talented Daniel Silva. And, as usual, Silva has done his homework. The narrative is filled with interesting details about art, spy craft, and the conflicts in and around the Middle East. It’s a well-written book that deserves the great reviews and the praise it has received. I liked it a lot.

Links to Daniel Silva’s books at: Amazon US, amazon UK,
Bokkilden.no, Haugen bok

©2010 The World of Books. All Rights Reserved.

Now he has retired from Mossad. But he is drawn out of retirement by Ari Shamron, the crafty Israeli spymaster, who is wants Allon to embark on a deadly mission – to kill Tariq, a Palestinian agent, before he can carry out his plan to assassinate an old comrade-in-arms, the treacherous peacemaker Yasir Arafat. As Tariq is the likely murderer of Gabriel Allon’s son, he accepts the mission.

In The Kill Artist, Shamron teams Allon up with with Jacqueline Delacroix, a French supermodel/Israeli secret agent whose grandparents died in the Holocaust. Gabriel sets up in London to monitor Yusef, Tariq’s fellow terrorist and confidant. Jacqueline is assigned to seduce him in hopes of intercepting Tariq, who is devising a plan to stop the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Daniel Silva is a master of the espionage thriller. His books always move along at a fast pace, and The Kill Artist is no exception. Whereas John Le Carre tends to let his spies play a gentleman’s game, Silva’s spies are not gentlemen, and the game no gentlemen’s game. Daniel Silva describes hard, boring and dirty intelligence work by one of the hardest and dirtiest intelligence services on the planet. Gabriel’s Mossad plays entirely unfairly, as it must, as it does in real life. Mossad and Shamron even allows a beautiful model to prostitute herself for the cause. The realism, along with the characters of course, is what I especially love in Daniel Silva’s books, and in The Kill Artist this realism is very present.

Order books by Daniel Silva from amazon US, or order from amazon UK: Daniel Silva.

©2010 The World of Books. All Rights Reserved.

Daniel Silva’s books are popular. One reason, of course, is that internation spy novels are exciting. They are stories from another planet than they one most of us inhabit. Another major reason, however, is also the author’s wonderful ability to put a human face on these big-picture themes. This is the case in Moscow Rules as well.

Gabriel Allon is sent to Rome for a one time meeting with the editor of an investigative news journal in Russia. However, the meeting never takes place as the man is murdered moments before meeting Allon. Allon then has to go to Moscow to find out what the message he never received was. The trails lead to a Russian millionaire, Ivan Kharkov. This former KGB agent has both legitimate and illegitimate enterprises.

When the Soviet Union began to crumble, Kharkov amassed a fortune. He became one of the newly minted billionaires of the new Kremlin. Now it is rumored that that Kharkov is amassing dangerous arms to sell to al-Qaeda. Allon has no choice but to take him on. And, as a member of Israel’s foreign intelligence service, he brings together and manages a group of spies and counter spies, negotiators and mediators, in order to stop the sale of the arms to al-Qaeda. Time is quickly running out.

Kharkov turns out to be a worthy opponent – he is smart, resourceful, cunning, and brutal. One that requires Allon to play by the old, time-worn Moscow Rules.

For me, this was a great read. Daniel Silva writes well, the plot moves rapidly, and side-plots and main plots are mixed seamlessly. Recommended for spy thriller addidicts and lovers of exciting books!

Order Moscow Rules by Daniel Silva from Amazon US or Amazon UK.

©2010 The World of Books. All Rights Reserved.