Some readers of Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series seem to think he’s jumped the shark, but I will go Double Dutch with Silva any day. Granted, this is not literary fiction by any stretch. These are spy thrillers, for God’s sake, and while Silva is no John le Carré or Mick Herron, his novels are thoroughly enjoyable.
If you don’t already know, Gabriel Allon is (now) the former head of Israeli Intelligence and also a world-class art restorer. Implausible, but who cares? This latest book, The Collector, has Allon hot on the trail of the person who has stolen a Vermeer painting for the third time. (The Concert was stolen originally during the infamous Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum heist in 1990.)
The Collector is the 26th in the Allon series. (You can, of course read them in order if you prefer.) There are femmes fatales, jewel thieves, Russian defectors, motorcycle assassins, and lots and lots of back story about art history, theft, forgery, and restoration. There are Berettas and Glocks, descriptions of fancy clothes and food, and scenic locales including Amsterdam, Paris, Venice, and Israel. (Kind of like The Bourne Identity for the art set.) These books are just fun, even though the threat of nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia sneaks in.
It’s hard to remember one from the other, in part because there are so bloody many of them, but they are great when you just want to stop thinking for a while. Perfect for the dreaded dog days.
Carin Pratt is one of the remarkably knowledgeable crew at the Norwich Bookstore—and an ardent recommender of books. Before she landed in these parts, she spent 27 years at CBS News, including two decades as the executive producer of Face the Nation.