Questions for Discussion

1. Of what interest and significance is it that the story begins in St. Peter’s “mighty Basilica,” with the caretaker Niccolo Moretti?

2. Consider the detailed description of the painting Gabriel Allon is restoring, Caravaggio’s The Deposition of Christ (12). What does that choice add to the novel?

3. Caravaggisto Giacomo Benedetti suggests that part of The Deposition of Christ perhaps shouldn’t be restored (13), an opinion that foreshadows the larger issue of the handling of art and antiquities. What are the pros and cons of restoring aged art?

4. Not unlike the many artifacts and antiquities mentioned throughout the novel, Gabriel Allon is at times referred to as a “damaged” object himself (13), and with “a damaged canvas of his own” (302). In what ways does this seem true and how is it important to his character?

5. Monsignor Luigi Donati is described as following the Machiavellian idea that “it is far better for a prince to be feared than loved” (19). In what ways is this appropriate or not to his responsibilities? Machiavelli is also named to describe the deal Gabriel Allon strikes with General Ferrari (87). How is this similar or different?

6. On a number of occasions it is suggested that Monsignor Luigi Donati and Gabriel Allon, despite their obvious differences, are quite alike (19). In what ways is this true and why do you think they have established such a close relationship?

7. At the Villa Giulia, Gabriel Allon realizes the Euphronios krater, “one of the greatest single pieces of art ever created,” is kept where few people ever see it (89). Dr. Veronica Marchese later talks of getting many works from her husband’s collection into museums (118). What is the proper place for antiquities? Should they be privately held? Do countries of origin have a rightful claim to them?

8. The Euphronios krater depicts “Sarpedon, son of Zeus, being carried off for burial by the personifications of Sleep and Death” (91). What do the similarities of this scene to Caravaggio’s The Deposition of Christ add to the novel?

9. At one point, Veronica makes the claim that Gabriel Allon “would have made an excellent priest” (94). What qualities might she be referring to?

10. Consider Monsignor Donati’s early involvement with “liberation theology” as he describes it to Gabriel Allon (105). What does this add to your understanding of his personality and actions throughout the novel?

11. What does it add to your understanding of Monsignor Donati to learn of his crisis of faith during which he left the priesthood and fell in love? (106)

12. Consider Rivka, the often-mentioned woman whose skeleton Eli Lavon discovered in temple ruins. (141, 355, 379) What does she represent? What does Eli’s emotional attachment add to the narrative?

13. Consider the similarities between the tragic deaths of Rivka and Claudia Andreatti.

14. Archeologist Eli Lavon is said to be “waging war in those excavation trenches beneath the Western Wall” (224). How does archeology play a role in history and modern politics?

15. Gabriel Allon admits “a grudging respect” for Massoud, a terrorist leader, and even says, “in a parallel universe [he] might have been a renowned jurist or a statesman from a decent country” (250). What qualities might he be referring to?

16. Momentarily “paralyzed by memories” outside a restaurant where he once dined with his former wife Leah and their son, Gabriel Allon admits to being lost to a woman who looks to help him. Given that he knows where he is at that moment, in what other ways might he be lost?

17. Although Gabriel Allon admits to loving Israel “dearly,” and his wife Chiara claims that it feels like home, Gabriel is reluctant to return there to live. What are some of the reasons? Do you think he should return?

18. Many famous paintings are mentioned and described throughout the novel (12, 13, 14, 18, 76, 77, 120, 164, 170, 389). What does the subject matter of each, and art in general, add to the particular scene or the novel as a whole?

19. Where should Gabriel Allon go next?

“Daniel Silva’s The Fallen Angel soars with authenticity….The Fallen Angel delivers the goods….Riveting espionage adventures that have timely, real-world relevance.”

   — Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram

“Meticulously researched….The Fallen Angel is a first-class spy mystery painted on a grand scale.”

— Columbus Dispatch

“Another heart-pounding escapade of art restorer and Israeli intelligence legend Gabriel Allon gets masterful treatment.”

— AudioFile Magazine

“His past 12 books, all featuring enigmatic spy/art restorer Gabriel Allon, have kept Silva’s name high in the ranks; the latest, the Vatican-set The Fallen Angel, seems unlikely to reverse the trend.”

— Arizona Republic

“In addition to being fun, Silva’s novels have the virtue of being prescient: Several key developments in the realms of diplomacy and espionage have been presaged, if not outright predicted, in Silva’s work—a trend the author obliquely attributes to his “good contacts” inside various intelligence agencies…”

— Tablet

“The best vacation read available for the summer of 2012…superb combination of pacing and plot”

— Hugh Hewitt on TownHall.com

“…One of the best in the series…Lots of action and interesting political points of view.”

— Hutchinson Leader

“Silva’s books have active plots and bold, dramatic themes…Gabriel is the perfect hero for the new millennium.”

— The Miami Herald

“This book is a must-read.”

— American Thinker

1.

VATICAN CITY

It was Niccolò Moretti, caretaker of St. Peter’s Basilica, who made the discovery that started it all. The time was 6:24 a.m., but owing to a wholly innocent error of transcription, the Vatican’s first official statement incorrectly reported it as 6:42. It was one of numerous missteps, large and small, that would lead many to conclude the Holy See had something to hide, which was indeed the case. The Roman Catholic Church, said a noteworthy dissident, was but one scandal away from oblivion. The last thing His Holiness needed now was a dead body in the sacred heart of Christendom.

A scandal was the last thing Niccolò Moretti had been expecting to find that morning when he arrived at the Vatican one hour earlier than his usual time. Dressed in dark trousers and a knee-length gray coat, he was scarcely visible as he hurried across the darkened piazza toward the steps of the Basilica. Glancing to his right, he saw lights burning in the third-floor windows of the Apostolic Palace. His Holiness Pope Paul VII was already awake. Moretti wondered whether the Holy Father had slept at all. The Vatican was swirling with rumors he was suffering from a crippling bout of insomnia, that he spent most nights writing in his private study or walking alone in the gardens. The caretaker had seen it before. Eventually, they all lost the ability to sleep.

Moretti heard voices behind him and, turning, saw a pair of Curial priests materialize from the gloom. They were engaged in animated conversation and paid him no heed as they marched toward the Bronze Doors and melted once more into the shadows. The children of Rome called them bagarozzi—black  beetles. Moretti had used the word once as a child and had been scolded by none other than Pope Pius XII. He’d never said it since. When one is chastised by the Vicar of Christ, he thought now, one rarely repeats the same offense.

He hiked up the steps of the Basilica and slipped into the portico. Five doors led into the nave. All were sealed except for the one at the far left, the Door of Death. In the opening stood Father Jacobo, an emaciated-looking Mexican cleric with strawlike gray hair. He stepped aside so Moretti could enter, then closed the door and lowered the heavy bar. “I’ll come back at seven to let in your men,” the priest said. “Be careful up there, Niccolò. You’re not as young as you used to be.”

The priest withdrew. Moretti dipped his fingers in holy water and made the sign of the cross before setting out up the center of the vast nave. Where others might have paused to gaze in awe, Moretti forged on with the familiarity of a man entering his own home. As chief of the sampietrini, the official caretakers of the Basilica, he had been coming to St. Peter’s six mornings a week for the past twenty-seven years. It was because of Moretti and his men that the Basilica glowed with heaven’s light while the other great churches of Europe seemed forever shrouded in darkness. Moretti considered himself not only a servant of the papacy but a partner in the enterprise. The popes were entrusted with the care of one billion Roman Catholic souls, but it was Niccolò Moretti who looked after the mighty Basilica that symbolized their earthly power. He knew every square inch of the building, from the peak of Michelangelo’s dome to the depths of the crypt—all forty-four altars, twenty-seven chapels, eight hundred columns, four hundred statues, and three hundred windows. He knew where it was cracked and where it leaked. He knew when it was feeling well and when it was in pain. The Basilica, when it spoke, whispered into the ear of Niccolò Moretti.

St. Peter’s had a way of shrinking mere mortals, and Moretti, as he made his way toward the Papal Altar in the gray coat of his uniform, looked remarkably like a thimble come to life. He genuflected before the Confessio and then tilted his face skyward. Soaring nearly one hundred feet above him was the baldacchino, four twisting columns of bronze and gold crowned by a majestic canopy. On that morning, it was partially concealed by an aluminum scaffolding. Bernini’s masterpiece, with its ornate figures and sprigs of olive and bay, was a magnet for dust and smoke. Every year, in the week preceding the beginning of Lent, Moretti and his men gave it a thorough cleaning. The Vatican was a place of timeless ritual, and there was ritual, too, in the cleaning of the baldacchino. Laid down by Moretti himself, it stated that once the scaffolding was in place, he was always the first to scale it. The view from the summit was one that only a handful of people had ever seen—and Niccolò Moretti, as chief of the sampietrini, demanded the privilege of beholding it first.

Moretti climbed to the pinnacle of the front column, then, after attaching his safety line, inched his way on all fours up the slope of the canopy. At the very apex of the baldacchino was a globe supported by four ribs and crowned by a cross. Here was the most sacred spot in the Roman Catholic Church, the vertical axis running from the exact center of the dome straight down into the Tomb of St. Peter. It represented the very idea on which the enterprise rested. You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church. As the first crepuscular rays of light illuminated the interior of the Basilica, Moretti, faithful servant of the popes, could almost feel the finger of God tapping him on the shoulder.

As usual, time slipped from his grasp. Later, when questioned by the Vatican police, he would be unable to recall exactly how long he had been atop the baldacchino before he saw the object for the first time. From Moretti’s lofty perspective, it appeared to be a broken-winged bird. He assumed it to be something innocent, a tarpaulin left by another sampietrino or perhaps a scarf dropped by a tourist. They were always leaving their possessions behind, Moretti thought, including things that had no business being in a church.

Regardless, it had to be investigated, and so Moretti, the spell broken, maneuvered himself cautiously around and made the long descent to the floor. He set out across the transept but within a few paces realized the object was not a discarded scarf or tarpaulin at all. Moving closer, he could see the blood dried on the sacred marble of his Basilica and the eyes staring upward into the dome, sightlessly, like his four hundred statues. “Dear God in heaven,” he whispered as he hurried down the nave. “Please take pity on her poor soul.”

The public would know little of the events immediately following Niccolò Moretti’s discovery, for they were carried out in the strictest tradition of the Vatican, in complete secrecy and with a hint of Jesuitical low cunning. No one beyond the walls would know, for example, that the first person Moretti sought out was the cardinal rector of the Basilica, an exacting German from Cologne with a well-honed instinct for self-preservation. The cardinal had been around long enough to recognize trouble when he saw it, which explained why he neglected to report the incident to the police, choosing instead to summon the true keeper of the law inside the Vatican.

Consequently, five minutes later, Niccolò Moretti would bear witness to an extraordinary scene—the private secretary to His Holiness Pope Paul VII picking through the pockets of a dead woman on the floor of the Basilica. The monsignor removed a single item and then set out for the Apostolic Palace. By the time he reached his office, he had settled on a course of action. There would have to be two investigations, he concluded, one for public consumption, the other for his own. And for the private inquiry to be successful, it would have to be carried out by a person of trust and discretion. Not surprisingly, the monsignor chose as his inquisitor a man much like himself. A fallen angel in black. A sinner in the city of saints.

Whenever I go out on book tour, I am asked often for advice from writers struggling to finish their first manuscript. My response never varies: “I know it’s hard, but try to enjoy the experience. If you are lucky enough to be published, writing will never be the same again.”

I’m not sure I was always able to follow my own advice while I was working on my first novel, The Unlikely Spy, but I certainly had more fun writing it than any book that followed. I wrote without the pressure of a deadline or without the slightest expectation of being published. I wrote because I wanted to write. I wrote because I had to write.

A bit of background. I knew from the time I was a young boy that I wanted to be a writer. I did not come from a family of means—my parents were both schoolteachers—so the option of tinkering away on my first novel for a few years after graduation was not available to me. I became a journalist instead, in large part because I thought it would provide me with interesting experiences and good training in the art of storytelling. That turned out to be the case. After leaving graduate school before completing my master’s degree, I worked for UPI in San Francisco, Washington, and the Middle East. In December 1987, I met a beautiful and talented NBC News correspondent named Jamie Gangel while on assignment in the Persian Gulf. We decided to get married, and I returned to Washington, where I went to work for CNN. By the mid-1990s, I was the executive producer of CNN’s political talk show unit, which meant that I was responsible for programs such asCrossfire, The Capital Gang, Evans & Novak, and Inside Politics. It was a pressure cooker of a shop, populated by large egos and hot tempers. Within a few months of taking the job, I knew it was time to pursue my dream of writing a novel. I confessed my desire to my wife. She told me to get busy and was very supportive throughout the process.

I am often asked why I chose to write a World War Two thriller rather than one set in Washington. The answer is simple: I lived a Washington thriller every single day. I needed an escape from Washington. I chose to go back in time and to a place far, far away.

Wartime London and Berlin proved to be just the break I needed from my job. I devoured histories of the war, listened to wartime music, and watched every wartime film ever made. I rose early each morning, usually before five, and spent a few pleasant hours with Alfred Vicary, Catherine Blake, and Peter Jordan. Then I would head to the office and match wits with Patrick Buchanan, Michael Kinsley, and Robert Novak. It was difficult, and it was exhausting. But it was also an immense amount of fun.

I told no one of my secret life, because I wanted to preserve the right to fail in private. Fortunately, that turned out not to be the case. The manuscript was picked off the slush pile at a major New York publishing house and went to auction a few weeks later. In the winter of 1997, it spent five weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and received widespread critical acclaim. Some of my fans still think it’s my best book. I’m not so sure, but I’m flattered they think so. It was a definitely a labor of love.

Beatrice Pymm died because she missed the last bus to Ipswich.

Twenty minutes before her death she stood at the dreary bus stop and read the timetable in the dim light of the village’s single street lamp. In a few months the lamp would be extinguished to conform with the blackout regulations. Beatrice Pymm would never know of the blackout.

For now, the lamp burned just brightly enough for Beatrice to read the faded timetable. To see it better she stood on tiptoe and ran down the numbers with the end of a paint-smudged forefinger. Her late mother always complained bitterly about the paint. She thought it unladylike for one’s hand to be forever soiled. She had wanted Beatrice to take up a neater hobby — music, volunteer work, even writing, though Beatrice’s mother didn’t hold with writers.

“Damn,” Beatrice muttered, forefinger still glued to the timetable. Normally she was punctual to a fault. In a life without financial responsibility, without friends, without family, she had erected a rigorous personal schedule. Today, she had strayed from it — painted too long, started back too late.

She removed her hand from the timetable and brought it to her cheek, squeezing her face into a look of worry. Your father’s face, her mother had always said with despair — a broad flat forehead, a large noble nose, a receding chin. At just thirty, hair prematurely shot with gray.

She worried about what to do. Her home in Ipswich was at least five miles away, too far to walk. In the early evening there might still be light traffic on the road. Perhaps someone would give her a lift.

She let out a longfrustrated sigh. Her breath froze, hovered before her face, then drifted away on a cold wind from the marsh. The clouds shattered and a bright moon shone through. Beatrice looked up and saw a halo of ice floating around it. She shivered, feeling the cold for the first time.

She picked up her things: a leather rucksack, a canvas, a battered easel. She had spent the day painting along the estuary of the River Orwell. Painting was her only love and the landscape of East Anglia her only subject matter. It did lead to a certain repetitiveness in her work. Her mother liked to see people in art — street scenes, crowded cafés. Once she even suggested Beatrice spend some time in France to pursue her painting. Beatrice refused. She loved the marshlands and the dikes, the estuaries and the broads, the fen land north of Cambridge, the rolling pastures of Suffolk.

She reluctantly set out toward home, pounding along the side of the road at a good pace despite the weight of her things. She wore a mannish cotton shirt, smudged like her fingers, a heavy sweater that made her feel like a toy bear, a reefer coat too long in the sleeves, trousers tucked inside Wellington boots. She moved beyond the sphere of yellow lamplight; the darkness swallowed her. She felt no apprehension about walking through the dark in the countryside. Her mother, fearful of her long trips alone, warned incessantly of rapists. Beatrice always dismissed the threat as unlikely.

She shivered with the cold. She thought of home, a large cottage on the edge of Ipswich left to her by her mother. Behind the cottage, at the end of the garden walk, she had built a light-splashed studio, where she spent most of her time. It was not uncommon for her to go days without speaking to another human being.

All this, and more, her killer knew.

After five minutes of walking she heard the rattle of an engine behind her. A commercial vehicle, she thought. An old one, judging by the ragged engine note. Beatrice watched the glow of the headlamps spread like sunrise across the grass on either side of the roadway. She heard the engine lose power and begin to coast. She felt a gust of wind as the vehicle swept by. She choked on the stink of the exhaust.

Then she watched as it pulled to the side of the road and stopped.

The hand, visible in the bright moonlight, struck Beatrice as odd. It poked from the driver’s-side window seconds after the van had stopped and beckoned her forward. A thick leather glove, Beatrice noted, the kind used by workmen who carry heavy things. A workman’s overall — dark blue, maybe.

The hand beckoned once more. There it was again — something about the way it moved wasn’t quite right. She was an artist, and artists know about motion and flow. And there was something else. When the hand moved it exposed the skin between the end of the sleeve and the base of the glove. Even in the poor light Beatrice could see the skin was pale and hairless — not like the wrist of any workman she had ever seen — and uncommonly slender.

Still, she felt no alarm. She quickened her pace and reached the passenger door in a few steps. She pulled open the door and set her things on the floor in front of the seat. Then she looked up into the van for the first time and noticed the driver was gone.

Beatrice Pymm, in the final conscious seconds of her life, wondered why anyone would use a van to carry a motorcycle. It was there, resting on its side in the back, two jerry cans of petrol next to it.

Still standing next to the van, she closed the door and called out. There was no answer.

Seconds later she heard the sound of a leather boot on gravel.

She heard the sound again, closer.

She turned her head and saw the driver standing there. She looked to the face and saw only a black woolen mask. Two pools of pale blue stared coldly behind the eyeholes. Feminine-looking lips, parted slightly, glistened behind the slit for the mouth.

Beatrice opened her mouth to scream. She managed only a brief gasp before the driver rammed a gloved hand into her mouth. The fingers dug into the soft flesh of her throat. The glove tasted horribly of dust, petrol, and dirty motor oil. Beatrice gagged, then vomited the remains of her picnic lunch — roast chicken, Stilton cheese, red wine.

Then she felt the other hand probing around her left breast. For an instant Beatrice thought her mother’s fears about rape had finally been proved correct. But the hand touching her breast was not the hand of a molester or a rapist. The hand was skilled, like a doctor’s, and curiously gentle. It moved from her breast to her ribs, pressing hard. Beatrice jerked, gasped, and bit down harder. The driver seemed not to feel it through the thick glove.

The hand reached the bottom of her ribs and probed the soft flesh at the top of her abdomen. It went no farther. One finger remained pressed against the spot. Beatrice heard a sharp click.

An instant of excruciating pain, a burst of brilliant white light.

Then, a benevolent darkness.

The killer had trained endlessly for this night, but it was the first time. The killer removed the gloved hand from the victim’s mouth, turned, and was violently sick. There was no time for sentiment. The killer was a soldier — a major in the secret service — and Beatrice Pymm soon would be the enemy. Her death, while unfortunate, was necessary.

The killer wiped away the vomit from the lips of the mask and set to work, taking hold of the stiletto and pulling. The wound sucked hard but the killer pulled harder, and the stiletto slipped out.

An excellent kill, clean, very little blood.

Vogel would be proud.

The killer wiped the blood from the stiletto, snapped the blade back into place, and put it in the pocket of the overall. Then the killer grasped the body beneath the arms, dragged it to the rear of the van, and dumped it on the crumbling edge of the tarmac.

The killer opened the rear doors. The body convulsed.

It was a struggle to lift the body into the back of the van, but after a moment it was done. The engine hesitated, then fired. Then the van was on the move again, flashing through the darkened village and turning onto the deserted roadway.

The killer, composed despite the presence of the body, quietly sang a song from childhood to help pass the time. It was a long drive, four hours at least. During the preparation the killer had driven the route by motorcycle, the same bike that now lay beside Beatrice Pymm. The drive would take much longer in the van. The engine had little power, the brakes were bad, and it pulled hard to the right.

The killer vowed to steal a better one next time.

Stab wounds to the heart, as a rule, do not kill instantly. Even if the weapon penetrates a chamber, the heart usually continues to beat for some time until the victim bleeds to death.

As the van clattered along the roadway, Beatrice Pymm’s chest cavity rapidly filled with blood. Her mind approached something close to a coma. She had some sense she was about to die.

She remembered her mother’s warnings about being alone late at night. She felt the wet stickiness of her own blood seeping out of her body into her shirt. She wondered if her painting had been damaged.

She heard singing. Beautiful singing. It took some time, but she finally discerned that the driver was not singing in English. The song was German, the voice a woman’s.

Then Beatrice Pymm died.

Evocative… memorable… A classic World War II espionage tale.”
—The Washington Post

Briskly suspenseful.”
—The New York Times

Breathtaking… Compelling… A roller-coast World War II adventure that conjures up memories of the best of Ken Follett and Frederick Forsyth.”
—The Orlando Sentinel

Layers of depth and intrigue… Silva succeeds with panache.”
—USA Today

Silva has clearly done is homework, mixing fact and fiction to delicious effect and building tension-with breathtaking double and triple turns of plot-like a seasoned pro.”
—People

A first novel of remarkable ingenuity and daring… This is a book that will stick in your imagination long after you have figured out where all the pieces fit.”
—Playboy

When he heard the approach of the Dauntless, the man called Yassim quickly flashed a powerful signal lamp three times. The smaller vessel came into view. Mahmoud reduced power, and the Dauntless glided toward the stern of the yacht.

Even in the weak light of the moon he could see it on the boy’s face: the crazed excitement, the fear, the rush. He could see it in the shining deep-brown Palestinian eyes, see it in the jittery hands fumbling over the controls of the Dauntless. Left to his own devices, Mahmoud would be up all night and the next day too, reliving it, recounting every detail, explaining over and over how it felt the moment the plane burst into flames.

Yassim detested ideologues, detested the way they all wore their suffering like armor and disguised their fear as valor. He distrusted anyone who would willingly lead a life such as this. He trusted only professionals.

The Dauntless nudged against the stern of the yacht. The wind had picked up in the last few minutes. Gentle swells lapped against the sides of the boats. Yassim climbed down the ladder as Hassan Mahmoud shut down the engine and clambered into the forward seating area. He reached out a hand for Yassim to help him out of the boat, but Yassim simply drew a silenced 9mm Glock pistol from the waistband of his trousers and shot the Palestinian boy rapidly three times in the face.

That night he set the yacht on an easterly heading and engaged the automatic navigation systems. He lay awake in his stateroom. Even now, even after countless killings, he could not sleep the first night after an assassination. When he was making his escape, or still in public, healways managed to remain focused and operational cool. But at night the demons came. At night he saw the faces, one by one, like photographs in an album. First alive and vibrant; then contorted with the death mask or blown apart by his favorite method of killing, three bullets to the face. Then the guilt would come, and he would tell himself that he had not chosen this life; it had been chosen for him. At dawn, with the first gray light of morning leaking through his window, he finally slept.

He rose at midday and went about the routine of preparing for his departure. He shaved and showered, then dressed and packed the rest of his clothing into a small leather grip. He made coffee and drank it while watching CNN on the yacht’s superb satellite television system. Such a pity: the grieving relatives at Kennedy and Heathrow, the vigil at a high school somewhere on Long Island, the reporters wildly speculating about the cause of the crash.

He walked through the yacht room by room one last time to make certain he had left no trace of his presence. He checked the explosive charges.

At 6 p.m., the precise time he had been ordered, he retrieved a small black object from a cabinet in the galley. It was no larger than a cigar box and looked vaguely like a radio. He carried it outside onto the aft deck and pressed a single button. There was no sound, but he knew the message had been sent in a coded microburst. Even if the American NSA intercepted it, it would be meaningless gibberish.

The yacht motored eastward for two more hours. It was now 8 p.m. He set each of the charges and then slipped on a canvas vest with a heavy metal clamp on the front.

There was more wind tonight. It was colder and there were high clouds. The Zodiac, cleated at the stern, rose and fell rhythmically with the three-foot swells. He climbed into the craft, untied it, and pulled the starter cord. The engine came to life on the third pull. He turned away from the yacht and opened the throttle.

He heard the helicopter twenty minutes later. He shut down the Zodiac’s engine and shone a signal lamp into the sky. The helicopter hovered overhead, the night filled with the thump of its rotors. The cable fell from its belly. He attached it to his vest and pulled hard on it twice to signal that he was ready. A moment later he rose gently from the Zodiac.

He heard explosions in the distance. He turned his head in time to see the large motor yacht being lifted out of the water by the force of the blasts. Then it began its slow descent toward the bottom of the Atlantic.

A terrific thriller… One of the best-drawn fictional assassins since The Day of the Jackal.”
—The San Francisco Examiner

Split-second suspense by an inventive ace of the genre.”
—Newsday

Compulsively enjoyable… Silva keeps the double-crosses moving at a frenzied clip.”
—The San Francisco Chronicle

A must-read.”
—Entertainment Weekly

A taut spy thriller… Silva’s writing is clean, his characterizations pithy. And he keeps readers guessing.”
—The New York Post

A gleefully inventive series of plot twists…. Silva, who’s debut, The Unlikely Spy, put the WWII thriller back on the map, brings the genre up to date with a vengeance in an exhilarating story that roots razzle-dazzle espionage heroics in contemporary political headlines.”
—Kirkus (Starred Review)

Daniel Silva’s The Mark of the Assassin is a worthy follow to his acclaimed debut, The Unlikely Spy, and bolsters his status as a master writer of espionage and intrigue… His wring is clean, crisp, and compelling. He conveys rich images and deep emotions without getting mired in ponderous prose or unnecessary detail. The book succeeds because Mr. Silva brings diverse forces together in a credible conclusion. He tells a fascinating story for, not just to, readers.”
—The Cincinnati Enquirer