The kill artist

Review by Booklist Review

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 FletcherAdult Books Young adult recommendations in this issue have been contributed by the Books for Youth editorial staff and by reviewers GraceAnne A. DeCandido, Sally Estes, Connie Fletcher, Sharon Greene, Roberta Johnson, Leone McDermott, Candace Smith, and Linda Waddle. Titles recommended for teens are marked with the following symbols: YA, for books of general YA interest; YA/C, for books with particular curriculum value; YA/L, for books with a limited teenage audience; YA/M, for books best suited to mature teens.

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

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. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

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. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Silva churns out his fourth thrill-a-minute sure-fire bestseller in as many years (The Marching Season, 1999, etc.). Another tale of international intrigue, this one rips Middle East strife from the headlines and introduces hero Gabriel Allon, living quietly away from the Israeli-intelligence work that got his wife and daughter killed. But the threat of Yasir Arafat’s assassination and permanent end to the peace process brings him back into action to chase across continents and put to an end the Palestinian terrorist who has a mysterious connection to Allon. Silva, who’s covered Middle East politics as a journalist and CNN producer, promises intriguing backstory and more twists and turns than you can shake an olive branch at. Author tour

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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By coincidence Timothy Peel arrived in the village the same week in July as the stranger. He and his mother moved into a ramshackle cottage at the head of the tidal creek with her latest lover, a struggling playwright named Derek, who drank too much wine and detested children. The stranger arrived two days later, settling into the old foreman's cottage just up the creek from the oyster farm. Peel had little to do that summer--when Derek and his mother weren't making clamorous love, they were taking inspirational forced marches along the cliffs--so he determined to find out exactly who the stranger was and what he was doing in Cornwall. Peel decided the best way to begin was to watch. Because he was eleven, and the only child of divorced parents, Peel was well schooled in the art of human observation and investigation. Like any good surveillance artist, he required a fixed post. He settled on his bedroom window, which had an unobstructed view over the creek. In the storage shed he found a pair of ancient Zeiss binoculars, and at the village store he purchased a small notebook and ballpoint pen for recording his watch report. The first thing Peel noticed was that the stranger liked old objects. His car was a vintage MG roadster. Peel would watch from his window as the man hunched over the motor for hours at a time, his back poking from beneath the bonnet. A man of great concentration, Peel concluded. A man of great mental endurance. After a month the stranger vanished. A few days passed, then a week, then a fortnight. Peel feared the stranger had spotted him and taken flight. Bored senseless without the routine of watching, Peel got into trouble. He was caught hurling a rock though the window of a tea shop in the village. Derek sentenced him to a week of solitary confinement in his bedroom. But that evening Peel managed to slip out with his binoculars. He walked along the quay, past the stranger's darkened cottage and the oyster farm, and stood at the point where the creek fed into the Helford River, watching the sailboats coming in with the tide. He spotted a ketch heading in under power. He raised the binoculars to his eyes and studied the figure standing at the wheel. The stranger had come back to Port Navas. The ketch was old and badly in need of restoration, and the stranger cared for it with the same devotion he had shown his fickle MG. He toiled for several hours each day: sanding, varnishing, painting, polishing brass, changing lines and canvas. When the weather was warm he would strip to the waist. Peel couldn't help but compare the stranger's body with Derek's. Derek was soft and flabby; the stranger was compact and very hard, the kind of man you would quickly regret picking a fight with. By the end of August his skin had turned nearly as dark as the varnish he was so meticulously applying to the deck of the ketch. He would disappear aboard the boat for days at a time. Peel had no way to follow him. He could only imagine where the stranger was going. Down the Helford to the sea? Around the Lizard to St. Michael's Mount or Penzance? Maybe around the cape to St. Ives. Then Peel hit upon another possibility. Cornwall was famous for its pirates; indeed, the region still had its fair share of smugglers. Perhaps the stranger was running the ketch out to sea to meet cargo vessels and ferry contraband to shore. The next time the stranger returned from one of his voyages, Peel stood a strict watch in his window, hoping to catch him in the act of removing contraband from the boat. But as he leaped from the prow of the ketch onto the quay, he had nothing in his hands but a canvas rucksack and plastic rubbish bag. The stranger sailed for pleasure, not profit. Peel took out his notebook and drew a line through the word smuggler. The large parcel arrived the first week of September, a flat wooden crate, nearly as big as a barn door. It came in a van from London, accompanied by an agitated man in pinstripes. The stranger's days immediately assumed a reverse rhythm. At night the top floor of the cottage burned with light--not normal light, Peel observed, but a very clear white light. In the mornings, when Peel left home for school, he would see the stranger heading down the creek in the ketch, or working on his MG, or setting off in a pair of battered hiking boots to pound the footpaths of the Helford Passage. Peel supposed he slept afternoons, though he seemed like a man who could go a long time without rest. Peel wondered what the stranger was doing all night. Late one evening he decided to have a closer look. He pulled on a sweater and coat and slipped out of the cottage without telling his mother. He stood on the quay. looking up at the stranger's cottage. The windows were open; a sharp odor hung on the air, something between rubbing alcohol and petrol. He could also hear music of some sort--singing, opera perhaps. Excerpted from The Kill Artist by Daniel Silva All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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