Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Heartstopping. With apologies to the producers of "Casablanca," Daniel Silva has "rounded up the usual suspects" and created another outstanding tale of Gabriel Allon, assassin, spy, security consultant, and director of the Office, Silva's name for Israel's Mossad. The first death occurs in the first chapter. Victor Orlov, the Russian dissenter and emigré who has incurred the enmity of the president of Russia, dies from exposure to a lethal nerve agent. The suspected murderer turns out to be an innocent who was duped into delivering the package containing the poison. Gabriel calls on virtually every contact he has in the small world of natioonal security officials who look more or less kindly on Israel's right to exist. Gabriel activates his traditional team and, partly because he is the director, uses the electronic assets of the Israeli intelligence structure. The novel is very much a procedural for the first 350 pages or so. Gabriel methodically peels back the layers of the onion of a Russian-operated international financial conspiracy, develops his plan to bring the miscreants to justice (of a sort), and sets the plan in motion. Of course, no plan is perfect. What fun would that be? The reader should plan on reading the last 100 (or so) pages at a single sitting. Gabriel's tale plays out against the backdrop of real-world events. The heartstopping part? Well, that's in those last 100 (or so) pages. I'm not telling.