Sometimes when I read a Daniel Silva thriller I get my
fiction and reality confused. And isn't that a sign of a
great storyteller? Silva has the right touch of blending
current events and characters into a fast-paced
international thriller so if you're a news junkie the
plot
points are not far-fetched; in fact, you wonder what
events
are true and which are really fiction.
THE ENGLISH SPY starts out with a bang. Literally a
bombing.
A mysterious assassin masquerading as a chef gets hired
in
St. Barts for a Caribbean holiday cruise aboard a luxury
yacht where the guests include the ex-Royal Princess and
her
entourage. After a delicious day of sun bathing and
eating
and drinking, the chef plants a bomb, escapes from the
yacht
and blows it up remotely. Although conspiracy theories
about
an ex-princess's death being a murder are plentiful, this
scenario is more reminiscent of the Lord Mountbatten
murder
in 1979 by the Provisional Irish Republican Army. The
British are stumped in their attempt to find the killers
of
the beloved people's princess until Seymour of MI6
receives
a message from the Israeli foreign intelligence.
Then we switch to Italy where Gabriel Allon is restoring
a
famous stolen painting, Caravaggio's Nativity with St.
Francis and St. Lawrence masterpiece, as he awaits
the
birth of his twins. This is possibly Allon's last
restoration as it may be difficult in the future for the
next head of Israeli intelligence to indulge in his
artist
passion. But Seymour arrives with a special request. It
seems the murder of the ex-princess has a connection;
Eamon
Quinn, an IRA bomber the Israelis had offered to
eliminate
years ago is the primary suspect. Now Seymour needs a
favor.
The best man for the job is a British deserter turned
professional assassin -- Christopher Keller. Allon is
Seymour's only connection who can convince Keller to hunt
down the bomber and eliminate him for the British. And to
sweeten the deal, this is the bomber with personal
connections to both Keller and Allon. Revenge is better
when
it's personal.
Taking the reader from Italy to Ireland to Portugal and
back
to London on a fast-paced hunt to track down the bomber
and
find out who really paid for the killing is a tale in
itself. Allon's team is put together one more time to
trap
the killers. The addition of Keller just adds to the
excitement and bodes well for future Allon novels. THE
ENGLISH SPY is the fifteenth novel in the Gabriel
Allon
series and although it's not necessary to read all the
previous books, if you're a espionage thriller aficionado
you really don't want to miss them.
She is an iconic member of the British Royal Family,
beloved for her beauty and
charitable works, resented by her former husband and his
mother, the Queen of
England. But when a bomb explodes aboard her holiday yacht,
British intelligence
turns to one man to track down her killer: legendary spy
and assassin Gabriel
Allon.
Gabriel's target is Eamon Quinn, a master bomb maker and
mercenary of death who
sells his services to the highest bidder. Fortunately
Gabriel does not pursue him
alone; at his side is Christopher Keller, a British
commando turned professional
assassin who knows Quinn's murderous handiwork all too
well. And though Gabriel
does not realize it, he is stalking an old enemy—a cabal of
evil that wants nothing
more than to see him dead. Gabriel will find it necessary
to oblige them, for when
a man is out for vengeance, death has its distinct
advantages. . . .
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