BOOK REVIEW
‘House of Spies’ - By Daniel Silva
527 pages – Harper Collins
Reviewed by: Jeb Ladouceur
One of the most interesting attributes with which Daniel Silva’s irresistible protagonist, Gabriel Allon, is blessed, is (of all things) the Israeli master spy’s facility as a world-class art restorer. Doubly fascinating is author Silva’s uncanny ability to weave together the unlikely combination of espionage and fine art savvy so expertly that each of his stories makes logical use of both Allon aptitudes. Thus we find several of Silva’s book titles laced with artistic terms, as in The Kill Artist, The Rembrandt Affair, Portrait of a Spy, etcetera.
In my view, while one admittedly should not ‘judge a book by its cover,’ a novel’s content is usefully hinted at by its title. Given that premise, those Daniel Silva thrillers whose covers contain allusions to the fictitious Gabriel Allon’s artistic propensity, are the ones that readers who are new to this exquisite storyteller, might look into initially.
This is not to say that any of Daniel Silva’s books necessarily constitute a better read than another. Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find a Gabriel Allon novel that isn’t marked by the sort of intrigue and tension readers have come to expect from this razor-sharp master of suspense. Nor is any thriller buff likely to open a Silva novel that’s written in less than incisive prose. Consider the skill with which the simple act of lighting a cigarette is described on page 222 … Madame Sophie appeared relieved … she lit a cigarette and with thumb and ring finger, discreetly picked a fleck of tobacco from the tip of her tongue.
That’s the kind of sentence most writers only dream about composing … but which Daniel Silva delivers in droves while defining the characters that populate his nineteen novels.
Furthermore, the author’s descriptive skills are not limited to character definition. As one who spent a year in Morocco, this reviewer can vouch for Silva’s perceptive eye in describing that enigmatic country. It was almost breathtaking to read his spot-on depictions of cryptic Casablanca (where I saw a lone gendarme, armed with only a nightstick, beat back a crowd of a hundred riot-bound jihadists) … or mysterious Marrakesh (I interviewed Jimmy Stewart and Doris Day on location there while they filmed Hitchcock’s spellbinder, “The Man Who Knew Too Much”) … or Rabat, Fez, and Tangier (each of which city is known for its unique stamp of North African peculiarity).
But it is plain to those of us who have experienced Fez, and its Al Quaraouiyine University, (the oldest continually-operating university in the world) … or Tangier in northernmost Morocco (with its incredible views of Gibraltar) … that author Daniel Silva knows his venues intimately. In ‘House of Spies’ this phenomenal writer leads us through mystifying locales stretching from Washington D.C., to London, and Corsica (to name but a few of Gabriel Allon’s haunts) and we quickly come to the realization that the fictitious hero’s creator has indeed personally walked the streets he describes so intimately.
It is not surprising, therefore, that MGM has recently acquired the rights to all of Silva’s incomparable books. The competition in Hollywood must have been keen … and rightly so.
Daniel Silva is the award-winning, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Unlikely Spy, The Mark of the Assassin, The Marching Season, 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, and The English Spy.His books are published in more than thirty countries and are bestsellers around the world. He serves on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council and lives in Florida with his wife, CNN special correspondent Jamie Gangel, and their two children, Lily and Nicholas.
______________________________________________________________________
Award-winning writer, Jeb Ladouceur is the author of a dozen novels, and his theater and book reviews appear in several major L.I. publications. His recent hit, THE GHOSTWRITERS, explores the bizarre relationship between the late Harper Lee and Truman Capote. Ladouceur’s newly completed thriller, THE SOUTHWICK INCIDENT, debuted last month, when it was introduced at the Smithtown Library.. The book involves a radicalized Yale student and his CIA pursuers. Mr. Ladouceur’s revealing website is www.JebsBooks.com