Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

Daniel Silva’s books are always hard to put down, and this one was no exception. The book starts with a Russian intelligence officer being coerced into being an informant for Israel and the West, code name Heathcliff. When Heathcliff passes some intelligence that will make it apparent to the Russians that he’s passing secrets he needs to be extracted and given asylum. The Israelis will handle the exfiltration operation as they recruited him, and the British will give him asylum as they were a prime beneficiary of the information he passed on. It should be a simple operation, but a Russian assassin gets to the defector first and kills him. There is a mole somewhere in Israeli or British Intelligence giving information to the Russians – this is how they knew when and where the operation would take place. Not only have the Russians killed the asset, but they’ve cleverly found a way to cast suspicion on Gabriel Allon, the head of Israeli Intelligence, for the murder. This starts a series of events that links the present to a spy scandal from the 1950s. Gabriel Allon and his team set out to uncover the identity of the mole and the twists and turns getting to the solution are fascinating. In addition to being a great spy story, the interplay and relationships between the familiar players from all 18 books in the Gabriel Allon series is fascinating as always. In this book one of Gabriel’s best professional relationships falls victim to events. Because Daniel Silva books are always so tied to current events, they seem to be both fiction and non-fiction simultaneously. They always leave me feeling both very worried and yet somewhat hopeful. They’re also the only books where my first thought upon finishing is that I want to reread the book to catch anything I may have missed the first time. If you’re a newcomer to the series, this can be read as a standalone but I highly recommend starting from the first book of the series (The Kill Artist) and working forward. You’ll get to know and love the series regulars and see them evolve. This is another great book in a great series. This review is based on a complimentary pre-release copy, but that said, I liked the book so much that I purchased an ebook copy to keep in my library and reread – in fact I’m doing that right now! :D