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Gabriel Allon is on his honeymoon and is restoring an Old Master for the Vatican. Painting and art restoration is not work for this man, but balm for his soul. Thus, he is not happy to receive a summons from his old Israeli spymaster. Shamron's message is simple: they have a small errand for Gabriel. He merely needs to travel from Umbria to Rome to meet with a Russian journalist. The man, who works for a dissident newspaper in Moscow, has seen one of his colleagues murdered. Being an investigative reporter in the new Russia is not for the faint-hearted. However, before they can meet, the man Gabriel is to contact is attacked in St. Peter's Basilica and dies in Gabriel's arms. The novel swiftly moves on to Russia, to France, to England and back to Russia. True to form, Gabriel is in the thick of things, trying to discover what is so important that two people have died while attempting to get word to the West. When he learns that a former KGB officer who has built a global empire on arms dealing is now dealing with Al-Qaeda, Gabriel intends to bring him down. As in the other Gabriel Allon novels in this series, this fast-paced thriller is extraordinary. The author deftly sets the scenes and does the research that informs the readers as well as entertaining them. Moscow is a frightening and dangerous place as the hardliners take over and the former KGB seems to be running the country. Much of the plotting in this novel is undoubtedly realistic. The author, a former journalist, is noted for his painstaking research and it makes for scary and intense reading. There is nothing light-hearted about the situations and scenarios in this book. Gabriel is not getting any younger and the job just keeps getting harder. With his cast of regular supporting agents, it is good to catch up with him again, despite the usual nail-biting events of each book. A lot of the background, especially the treatment of journalists in Russia and the murder of a number of them is indeed 'ripped from the headlines'. We can truly appreciate the freedoms we enjoy when reading about the tactics of other governments and the dangers of exposing truths. Daniel Silva has done it again.
Reviewed by Lorraine Gelly, July 2008
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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