The Fallen Angel

I wait all year for the July release of Daniel Silva’s next book, and now that I’ve finished it, I’m in mourning that I have another 12 months to go until the next. I’m willing to wait if that’s what it takes the master of the international spy and terrorist genre to spin another awesome tale.  This is the 12^th book in the Gabriel Allon series, the master Israeli spy and assassin who moves about the world as a brilliant art restorer. In prior books, Allon became the close friend of the Pope since he literally saved the man’s life in St Peter’s Square. Now, he’s back in Rome doing another art restoration when the pope’s private secretary, Monsignor Luigi Donati, asks Allon to investigate the apparent suicide of Claudia Andreatti, a curator in the antiquities division of the Vatican. Her body was found on the cathedral floor and she had obviously fallen from a great height. But it wasn’t a suicide. Claudia had found that Carlo Marchese, the husband of her best friend, a wealthy man who was also on the board of the Bank of the Vatican, was a central figure in the black market trade of stolen artifacts, some of which were even disappearing from the Vatican’s collections. He was making use of the Vatican’s bank to launder money. The profits of the sales of the antiquities were being diverted to Hezbollah. Why? The mystery was captured in the time-honored Shiite practice called Taqiyya, “displaying one intention while harboring another.” The action takes us directly to Jerusalem and a Hezbollah/Iran inspired plot for the start of the third intifada. But this intifada would literally destroy the country. Only Gabriel Allon and his usual cast of characters can stop. The plot develops perfectly, the characters are believable, and the concluding 100 pages are impossible to put down. Silva is the best, and this is a stand-alone great novel. But, it’s my advice that you start with Silva’s first book in the series, “The Mark of the Assassin,” and then work your way through the list in order.  You have lots of joy ahead.