|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Frequently Bought Together
Product Details
|
Product Description
From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Silva continues to warrant comparisons to John le Carré, as shown by his latest thriller starring Israeli art restorer and spymaster Gabriel Allon. Ahmed bin Shafiq, a former chief of a clandestine Saudi intelligence unit, targets the Vatican for attack, in particular Pope Paul VII and his top aide, Monsignor Luigi Donati, who both appeared in Silva's previous novel, Prince of Fire. Shafiq, who now heads his own terrorist network, is allied with a militant Islamic Saudi businessman known as Zizi, a true believer committed to the destruction of all infidels. Gabriel's challenge is to infiltrate Zizi's organization, a task he assigns to a beautiful American art expert, Sarah Bancroft. Gabriel promises he'll protect her, but plans go awry, and by the end Sarah faces torture and death. While Sarah's fate is never in doubt, the way Silva resolves his plot will keep readers right where he wants them: on the edges of their seats.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* A terrorist bombing in St. Peter's Square leaves hundreds dead, the Pope injured, and the Basilica a ghastly, smoking pile. This tragedy confirms what began in London weeks before when a traffic accident killed a talent scout for al-Qaeda, leaving his briefcase, filled with surveillance photos of the Vatican, in the hands of Israeli agents. Silva's series hero, Gabriel Allon, is at the center of this fast-paced, completely absorbing international spy thriller. Allon is an art restorer and sometime spy. While restoring Old Masters is Allon's passion (and a wonderful source of intriguing details about the art world), he is called back into service from time to time. Allon's double life began in the aftermath of the Olympic massacre in 1972, when he was recruited to hunt down the Israeli athletes' killers. His sense of urgency in thwarting terrorism was brought into play by the deaths of his wife and infant son in a car bombing 13 years before. What makes this series fascinating is the interplay between standard spy-thriller fare of glamorous locales (here, the action breaks in Rome, Venice, Jerusalem, Paris, and D.C.), double and triple crosses, and justified paranoia with the passionate, tragic figure of Allon himself. An engrossing and beautifully written contemporary spy thriller. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most helpful customer reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Read This Book If You Love Spy Tradecraft,
By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 112,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER) (#1 HALL OF FAME)
This review is from: Messenger (Hardcover)
The spy novel genre hasn't been the same since the cold war ended. Magnificent fictional forays and counter-forays of east and west against one another with the fate of the world in the balance provided marvelous drama that led to wonderful plots, seat-squirming suspense, and intense emotional involvement with the characters. Many have tried to resurrect the spy novel genre with modern-day terror and antiterrorist activities. In most cases, these stories don't carry the same weight. It's as though we know the tales are too fanciful to be real.In the Messenger, Daniel Silva has recaptured some of the zest of the cold war spy stories in an intense tale of an innocent sent out among the lethal to identify a terrorist leader. You'll easily find yourself imagining that you are Sarah Bancroft, a curator at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., who is recruited to infiltrate a terrorist-supporting Saudi billionaire's entourage. The plot is quite a complex one. Gabriel Allon has been retired from spying while he quietly pursues his profession of art restorer. Israeli intelligence is checking out a terror suspect when the man is accidentally killed, leaving his laptop computer to be accessed. From the images, the Israelis conclude that the Vatican is a target. Allon is brought in to see what can be done to avoid an attack. Soon, events roll into motion that require more than prevention at the Vatican as the Israelis target a former Saudi official who seems to be running terror networks. Sarah Bancroft is recruited, and the hunt is on. Time is of the essence. Can they identify the target before the terrorists identify Sarah's true allegiances? The book's main weakness is that connecting the book's opening to the rest of the series takes up a lot of space. If you've read the other books, you don't need that much background. If you haven't read the other books, it's still too much. Then, the development of the spy gambit takes awhile to get off the ground. As a result, not much of the good material in the book occurs before page 110. But stick around. If you are patient with the opening, you'll be pleased with the rest, especially after page 162.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Silva continues to dazzle us,
By Cardinal47 (ottawa, ontario) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Messenger (Hardcover)
Gabriel Allon, art restorer and professional spy/assassin, is back again in another sizzling international spy thriller. The novel starts with a bang in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican as Arab terrorists attempt to assassinate the Pope.Allon comes to the rescue and thwarts the plot.Allon is then conscripted by his Israeli bosses to penetrate and bring down the terrorist network which orchestrated this and other plots. He recruits a young Americam art expert Sarah Bancroft to act as art adviser to the arch villain behind the network and to persuade him to purchase a fictional work by Van Gough. Sarah is exposed and runs into a rough spot before she is rescued by Allon and the arch villain meets a suitable fate. This and other Silva novels are part of a trend to spy novels which focus on terrorism rather than the spy novels of the Cold war which many of us were reared on.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent,
By
This review is from: Messenger (Hardcover)
An excellent read, Gabriel Allon is back for more and I couldn't be happier. I hope one of these books in the series of books from Daniel Silva makes it into a movie soon. I highly recommend this book along with all the previous ones.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Want to see more reviews on this item?
|
Most recent customer reviews |
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
