The Kill Artist (Gabriel Allon Series Book 1)

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The Kill Artist (Gabriel Allon Series Book 1)

Product Description From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Other Woman comes the first novel in the thrilling series featuring legendary assassin Gabriel Allon.Immersed in the quiet, meticulous life of an art restorer, former Israeli intelligence operative Gabriel Allon keeps his past well behind him. But now he is being called back into the game—and teamed with an agent who hides behind her own mask...as a beautiful fashion model.  Their target: a cunning terrorist on one last killing spree, a Palestinian zealot who played a dark part in Gabriel’s past. And what begins as a manhunt turns into a globe-spanning duel fueled by both political intrigue and deep personal passions... Review “[A] HEART-STOPPING, COMPLEX YARN OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM AND INTRIGUE…A thrilling roller-coaster ride, keeping readers guessing until the mind-bending conclusion.”—Publishers Weekly“A writer who is bringing NEW LIFE TO THE INTERNATIONAL THRILLER.”—Newsday “A MASTER WRITER OF ESPIONAGE…[Daniel Silva’s] writing is clean, crisp, and compelling.”—The Cincinnati Enquirer   “[A] THRILL-A-MINUTE SURE-FIRE BESTSELLER…[that] rips Middle East strife from the headlines.”—Kirkus Reviews About the Author Daniel Silva is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Unlikely Spy, The Mark of the Assassin, The Marching Season, and the Gabriel Allon series, including The Kill Artist, The English Assassin, The Confessor, A Death in Vienna, Prince of Fire, The Messenger, The Secret Servant, Moscow Rules, The Defector, The Rembrandt Affair, Portrait of a Spy, The Fallen Angel, The English Girl, The Heist, The English Spy, The Black Widow, and House of Spies. His books are published in more than thirty countries and are bestsellers around the world. Amazon.com Review Fans of Daniel Silva's well-received earlier novels, especially The Marching Season, will welcome his newest novel of espionage, revenge, and Middle Eastern politics. Gabriel Allon is an art restorer who's persuaded out of retirement by Ari Shamron, the crafty Israeli spymaster bent on a deadly mission: killing a Palestinian agent named Tariq before he can carry out his plan to assassinate an old comrade-in-arms, the treacherous peacemaker Yasir Arafat. Tariq's role in the murder of Gabriel's wife and son draws both Gabriel and Sarah Halevy, the beautiful French model whose affair with Gabriel led to the assassination of his family. Still in love with Gabriel, Sarah allows herself to be set up with a cover and infiltrated into Tariq's inner circle. But before Gabriel can rescue her and fulfill his mission, Tariq turns the tables to get his old adversary as well as Arafat in his own sights. A particularly resonant scene in which Tariq and Arafat confront each other and discuss their former friendship, as well as the change in tactics that has brought Tariq to the ultimate betrayal, reveals Silva's deep comprehension of Palestinian rivalries. He puts a clever little fillip on the ending that adds to the brio of this strongly paced thriller. Silva creates complex, fascinating characters in Gabe, Ari, and Tariq, and more than fulfills the promise of his earlier books. --Jane Adams From the Back Cover “A MASTER WRITER OF ESPIONAGE. . . [Daniel Silva’s] writing is clean, crisp, and compelling.”–Cincinnati Enquirer“[A] THRILL-A-MINUTE SURE-FIRE BESTSELLER . . . [that] rips Middle East strife from the headlines.”–Kirkus Reviews From the Inside Flap 4 cassettes/ 6 hoursRead byGabriel Allon was a key operative in secret Isreali-intellence missions.  When his wife and daughter fell victim to the danger that accompanied him everywhere, Gabriel quit and devoted himself to the work of art restortation-- previously a cover for his secret missions.  But now Ari Shamron, the head of Isreali intelligence, needs Gabriel's particular kind of experience to thwart a Palestinian plot to destroy the peace negotiations in the Middle East.  The architect of this plot, a Palestinian zealot named Tariq, is a lethal part of Gabriel's past, and so as the two begin an intercontinental game of hide-and-seek, with life and death as the prizes, the motives are as personal as they are political.  The story, by an author who was praised by Newsday for "Bringing new life to the international thriller," features a colorful supporting cast-- including the Magus-like Shamron, a beautiful French-Jewish model who is seeking retribution for her family's death in the Holocaust, and a marvelously comic down-at-the-heels London art dealer.  And it includes fascinating background detail about the Palestinian situation and the cutthroat art world.  All of these elements add up to a smart and electrically exciting international thriller. From Library Journal A former Mossad agent, now an art restorer, is tapped to help thwart a Palestinian plot to halt peace talks by assassinating Yasir Arafat. Another December 26 release. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. From Booklist Silva, a former CNN correspondent who covered the volatile worlds of Washington, D.C., and the Middle East, brings his considerable expertise to bear in his spy thrillers. Starting with the World War II cliff-hanger, The Unlikely Spy (1997), and continuing through The Marching Season (1998), which tore through the Troubles in Northern Ireland, and The Mark of the Assassin (1999), which dissected a terrorist bombing of a plane off Long Island, the weight and authority of Silva's research hold the frenetic scene changes and plot switches of this genre together. Silva introduces a new hero here, Gabriel Allon, an art restorer and former key operative in the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad. Allon is one of the "kill artists" of the title; the other is the sociopathic Palestinian Tariq, who leaves a trail of bodies, starting with the Israeli ambassador in Paris, as markers on his way to assassinate Yasser Arafat. Mossad's spymaster recruits Allon, sick to death of the reprisals and counterreprisals, to get Tariq before he kills more Jews. Although the novel moves at a really fast clip, cutting from location to location, Silva avoids the espionage novelist's sin of glossy locales and comic-book action by giving his characters, even the minor ones, believably complex motivations that come into play in the thriller's overriding conflict. Part of the interest of Silva's work is the way he portrays various professions (here it's art dealership, publishing, and modeling) to be every bit as cutthroat as international intrigue. Connie FletcherCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved From Publishers Weekly The tragedy of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and despair of its resolution provide the backdrop for Silva's (The Unlikely Spy) heart-stopping, complex yarn of international terrorism and intrigue. Israeli master spy Ari Shamron sets an intricate plot in motion to lure deadly Palestinian assassin Tariq al-Hourani into his net. Art restorer Gabriel Allon, a former Israeli agent whose family was killed by Tariq, is lured back into the fray by Shamron and teamed with Jacqueline Delacroix, a French supermodel/Israeli secret agent whose grandparents died in the Holocaust. Gabriel sets up in London to monitor Yusef, Tariq's fellow terrorist and confidant. Jacqueline is assigned to seduce him in hopes of intercepting Tariq, who is devising a plan to kill Israel's prime minister during peace talks with Arafat in New YorkDand he has similar plans for Gabriel. The tortuous plot leading the various parties to the showdown in Manhattan is a thrilling roller-coaster ride, keeping readers guessing until the mind-bending conclusion. Sensitive to both sides of the conflict, the narrative manages to walk a political tightrope while examining the motivations of Palestinians and Israelis alike. The duplicity and secret financial juggling to keep government hands clean is personified in publishing mogul Benjamin Stone, who backs the Israeli efforts. He is just one of many larger-than-life characters (both real and invented) thrown into the mixDArafat himself has a tense encounter with Tariq that underscores the volatility of terrorist loyalty. An array of global locales adds to the complexity and authenticity of the dizzying, cinematic plot. (Dec.) Forecast: The popular success of Silva's first two novels and the timeliness of this one suggest escalating sales. Random is backing the title with major ad/promo, including a six-city author tour. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. From AudioFile Gabriel Allon left Israeli intelligence after the murders of his wife and child at the hands of Tariq, a Palestinian assassin. When Tariq's activities threaten the Mideast Peace Talks, Gabriel returns to his old life--and every move he makes brings him closer to a death trap set by Tariq. Jason Culp's Palestinian and Israeli accents are a bit thick, but they are only a small distraction in this abridgment, which is heavy on narration. Culp effectively reveals insights into the minds of the characters, a must for Daniel Silva's novels. The insights into life in Israel and the characters of the Palestinian territories are well thought out, but their unintended connection to recent events may be unsettling. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Vienna: January 1991The restorer raised his magnifying visor and switched off the bank of fluorescent lights. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the murkiness of evening in the cathedral; then he inspected a tiny portion of the painting just below an arrow wound on the leg of Saint Stephen. Over the centuries the paint had worn completely down to the canvas. The restorer had so carefully repaired the damage that without the use of specialized equipment it was now quite impossible to tell his work from the original, which meant he had done his job very well indeed.The restorer crouched on the work platform, wiped his brushes and palette, and packed away his paints into a flat rectangular case of polished wood. Nightfall had blackened the soaring stained-glass windows of the cathedral; a blanket of new snow had muffled the usual hum of the Vienna evening rush. So quiet was the Stephansdom that the restorer would scarcely have been surprised to see a medieval sexton scurrying across the nave by torchlight.He climbed off the high scaffolding with the agility of a house cat and dropped silently onto the stone floor of the chapel. A knot of tourists had been watching him work for several minutes. As a rule the restorer did not like spectators–indeed, some days he shrouded the platform in a gray tarpaulin. Tonight’s crowd dispersed as he pulled on a reefer coat and woolen watch cap. Softly, he bid them buona sera, instinctively recording each face in his mind, as permanently as if they were rendered with oil on canvas.An attractive German girl tried to engage him in conversation. She spoke to him in poor Italian. In rapid, Berlin-accented German–his mother had lived in Charlottenburg before the war–the restorer said he was late for an appointment and could not talk now. German girls made him uneasy. Reflexively his eyes wandered over her–across her large, rounded breasts, up and down her long legs. She mistook his attention for flirting, tilted her head, smiled at him through a lock of flaxen hair, suggested a coffee in the café across the square. The restorer apologized and said he had to leave. “Besides,” he said, looking up at the soaring nave, “this is Stephansdom, Fraülein. Not a pickup bar.”A moment later he passed through the entrance of the cathedral and struck out across the Stephansplatz. He was of medium height, well below six feet. His black hair was shot with gray at the temples. His nose was rather long and angular, with sharp edges across the bridge that left the suggestion it had been carved from wood. Full lips, cleft chin, cheekbones broad and square. There was a hint of the Russian steppes in his eyes–almond shaped, unnaturally green, very quick. His vision was perfect, despite the demanding nature of his work. He had a confident walk, not an arrogant swagger or a march but a crisp, purposeful stride that seemed to propel him effortlessly across the snowbound square. The box containing his paints and brushes was under his left arm, resting on the metal object that he wore, habitually, on his left hip.He walked along the Rotenturmstrasse, a broad pedestrian mall lined with bright shops and cafés, pausing before shop windows, peering at sparkling Mont Blanc pens and Rolex watches, even though he had no need for such things. He stopped at a snow-covered sausage stand, purchased a käsewurst, dropped it into a rubbish bin a hundred yards away without taking a bite. He entered a telephone booth, slipped a schilling into the coin slot, punched a random series of numbers on the keypad, all the while scanning the street and storefronts around him. A recorded voice informed him that he had made a dreadful mistake. The restorer replaced the receiver, collected his schilling from the coin tray, kept walking.His destination was a small Italian restaurant in the Jewish Quarter. Before the Nazis there had been nearly two hundred thousand Jews living in Vienna, and Jews had dominated the city’s cultural and commercial life. Now there were just a few thousand, mainly from the East, and the so-called Jewish Quarter was a strip of clothing stores, restaurants, and nightclubs clustered around the Judenplatz. Among Viennese the district was known as the Bermuda Triangle, which the restorer found vaguely offensive.The restorer’s wife and son were waiting for him–rear table, facing the door, just as he had taught her. The boy sat next to his mother, sucking strands of buttered spaghetti through rose-colored lips. He watched her for a moment, appraising her beauty the way he might assess a work of art: the technique, the structure, the composition. She had pale olive-toned skin, oval brown eyes, and long black hair, which was drawn back and lying across the front of one shoulder.He entered the restaurant. He kissed his son on the top of the head, chatted in Italian with the man behind the bar, sat down. His wife poured wine for him.“Not too much. I have to work tonight.”“The cathedral?”He pulled down his lips, cocked his head slightly. “Are you packed?” he asked.She nodded, then looked at the television above the bar. Air-raid sirens over Tel Aviv, another Iraqi Scud missile streaking toward Israel. The citizens of Tel Aviv putting on gas masks and taking shelter. The shot changed: a tongue of fire, falling from the black sky toward the city. The restorer’s wife reached across the table and touched his hand.“I want to go home.”“Soon,” the restorer said and poured himself more wine.She had left the car on the street just outside the restaurant, a dark blue Mercedes sedan, Vienna registration, leased by a small chemical company in Bern. He placed the boy in the backseat, buckled his safety belt, kissed his wife.“If I’m not there by six o’clock, something has gone wrong. You remember what to do?”“Go to the airport, give them the password and the clearance number, and they’ll take care of us.”“Six o’clock,” he repeated. “If I don’t walk through the door by six o’clock, go straight to the airport. Leave the car in the parking lot and throw away the keys. Do you understand me?”She nodded. “Just be home by six.”The restorer closed the door, gave a terse wave through the glass, and started to walk away. In front of him, floating over the rooftops of the old city, was the spire of the cathedral, ablaze with light. One more night, he thought. Then home for a few weeks until the next job.Behind him he heard the starter of the Mercedes engage, then hesitate, like a record album being played at the wrong speed. The restorer stopped walking and spun around.“No!” he screamed, but she turned the key again.From the Paperback edition. From The New Yorker The Mideast peace process is on, and a breakaway Palestinian cell wants to sabotage it. Out of retirement comes the legendary Israeli assassin Gabriel Allon; he must recruit his onetime lover, a French supermodel cum spy, for a plot against the terrorist who, ten years earlier, planted a bomb in the car of his wife and son. The author pulls off the delicate operation of making no political statement whatsoever: this is congenial, undemanding genre fiction, in which even the good guys are bad, and the moral quandaries can't compete with the almost sexual thrill of very dangerous missions executed very well. Silva may never get around to plumbing his characters' souls, but he's having such a good time that we're content just to watch him play. Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker Book Description The first Gabrel Allon novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva.Immersed in the quiet, meticulous life of an art restorer, former Israeli intelligence operative Gabriel Allon keeps his past well behind him. But now he is being called back into the game—and teamed with an agent who hides behind her own mask…as a beautiful fashion model.  Their target: a cunning terrorist on one last killing spree, a Palestinian zealot who played a dark part in Gabriel’s past. And what begins as a manhunt turns into a globe-spanning duel fueled by both political intrigue and deep personal passions...