The Secret Servant (Gabriel Allon)

Location: Home » body art - tattoo » Contemporary » The Secret Servant (Gabriel Allon)

Similar Items:

•	The Messenger
•	Moscow Rules
•	The First Commandment: A Thriller
•	Prince of Fire
•	The Kill Artist

Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
A terrorist plot in London leads Israeli spy Gabriel Allon on a desperate search for a kidnapped woman, in a race against time that will compromise Allons own conscienceand life...

Customer Reviews: Read 100 more reviews...

5 out of 5 stars

"Londonistan" September 15, 2007
39 out of 39 found this review helpful

Daniel Silva has yet again written a novel that at the same time will entertain and scare the hell out of you; a novel as well researched and believable as LeCarre in his Cold War glory days, but moving at the pace of Follett or Forsythe at the top of their story-telling skills.

In "The Secret Servant", Gabriel Allon, the avenging angel of Israel's formidable secret service, is back to do battle again with the ever-rising tide of radical Islam terrorism. Sent to Amsterdam on a seemingly routine mission to clean up after an assassinated undercover agent, Allon unwittingly uncovers an Al Qaeda-like plot which leads him to London and Elizabeth Halton, the daughter of the US Ambassador to The United Kingdom. Unable - barely - to thwart Elizabeth's kidnapping, Allon sets out with his familiar cast of "citizens of the night" from Tel Aviv's intelligence service, taking him on what I thought his most challenging and harrowing assignment since the days of his youth when he was summoned to wreck vengeance on the Black September perpetrators of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.

While the main course in "Secret Service" is harrowing suspense and action, told with brutal force and free-flowing blood, the venue here is the very real and very dangerous Islamification of Europe. And while Silva's popularity certainly suffers from blunt talk that may offend the more sensitive or liberal-minded readers, this is a straightforward and intelligent dissection of the threats facing the west today. But it is hardly simple, one-sided, Zionist rhetoric, for while there is no doubt on which side of the conflict Silva falls, he paints a surprisingly balanced picture of the enormity of the issue, wrapping his fiction around radical Islam's rise from the brutal poverty in ghettos in Middle east, fomenting hate fueled by the blunders of the west, and especially of the secular governments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

In short, gripping fiction with all the right adrenalin charged superlatives. But while the ending may be predictable, and the story is one that you'll recall with each new tale of terrorism in the headlines, "The Secret Servant" falls short on redemption, knowing that while individual acts of terror may be thwarted, the larger war rages on just below the that level of collective conscience we'd prefer not to acknowledge.

5 out of 5 stars

Chilling Reading August 10, 2007
23 out of 33 found this review helpful

I started my last review of a Silva book by noting that whatever else one says about him, he does not sugar coat his message. After finishing his seventh novel involving the Israeli art restorer, assassin and intelligence officer, Gabriel Allon, I can reliably report that nothing has changed.

In the story that unfolds is the very a very grim depiction of what is becoming the "Islamification" of Europe.

In the opening chapter an Israeli asset by the name of Solomon Rosner, a professor of scociology at the University of Amsterdam has caused a bit of a stir by writing a book entitled, "The Islamic Conquest of the West." In the book Rosner argues that Holland is currently under a sustained and systematic attack by jihadist Islam, the goal of which is to turn it into a majority Muslim state. The Dutch press looked upon the warning as "hysterical claptrap" and pronounced that what the situation needed was tolerance and dialogue. The book and the Dutch response to it made Rosner the most vilified and most celebrated man in Holland. An imam instructed his following that "Rosner the Jew must be dealt with harshly."
He was. Murdered on the street.

That murder sets in motion a series of events which involves Allon in trying to thwart the terrorists plans. The story is fast paced, intriguing, inormative and scary. Typical Silva, which means a fine read is in store for those that venture into the world according to this author, which unfortunately is a world we are all slowly coming to recognize.

5 out of 5 stars

Not just a thriller writer, a great writer! July 25, 2007
21 out of 23 found this review helpful

I am not a big reader of thriller type novels and/or series, but the work of Mr. Silva is an exception. Soon after my copy arrived in the mail I was cracking it open and reading the first chapter. Less than 24 hours later I am done! With The Secret Servant Silva again proves why he is a master craftsman. The Hero is Gabriel Allon, the legendary Israeli spy. This time out a plot has been uncovered to kidnap the daughter of the US Ambassador in London by Islamic extremists. It is up to Allon and his team to hunt down these brutal enemies. The plot is brimming with plot twists, and while I don't want to ruin the ending, let me say it caught me by complete surprise. Really terrific! On top of this, Silva as a great writing style that packs a lot into a little. He also has a knack for bringing characters to life. If you have never read any of the Allon series before I recommend you start with the earlier books.

4 out of 5 stars

by Silva's own standard July 27, 2007
12 out of 20 found this review helpful

Let me start by saying that Daniel Silva writes the best thrillers on the market today, edging out Linda DaviesInto the Fire Wilderness of Mirrors (before she turned to chick lit) and the old Ludlums.

This isn't one of Silva's best.

Yes, it's good. So buy it; read it. Other reviewers here enthusiastically list the novel's good points. The problem - if it can be so called - is that Silva's best is extraordinary. OK, so nobody does extraordinary every single time. But in this novel he is glib and careless, two words I never thought I'd about Daniel Silva.

The story is told almost exclusively from the point of view of Gabriel Allon. Yes, Gabriel is a fascinating character, but one of the strengths of Silva's earlier novels - both the other Allon novels and the two IRA/CIA books - is that we see into the minds and emotions of Gabriel's enemies and allies as well.

None of that here. We never get a glimpse into the mind of Graham Seymour, the M15 man who has appeared in several novels and whose father we met in The Unlikely Spy. We hear Ibrahim - the sympathetic Muslim character - tell (briefly) of his life in Egypt, but there's a huge difference between telling and showing. Of the mind of Ibrahim's son we know nothing. The Paris-based Sphinx is a veritable walk-on, making an already fragmented plot even choppier. In earlier novels, Silva took the time to develop collateral characters, goodies and baddies, giving both historical background and several pages of episodes from their lives. This novel and the last novel, The Messenger, both lack those backgrounds and the books are weaker because of that lack.

The biggest problem created by this absence concerns Elizabeth Halton, the kidnapped woman. (No, I'm not spoiling; it's on the dust jacket.) We have five whole pages to get to know her, and most of that ink is spilled on her father. It's hard to care very much about a person we know so slightly. Yes, we do get bits and pieces of what she's thinking while she's held captive, but that is so generic as to be without emotional impact.

We don't know Elizabeth well enough to care, to think she's worth the extraordinary measures expended on her behalf. So the central problem here is: Why would Gabriel risk his life and the lives of his agents for one American woman of good deeds but no distinction? Yes, she's the daughter of a billionaire ambassador and goddaughter of the US president, but those are labels. Why should we care? why should Gabriel? Historically -- within the series -- his disdain for Americans is only very slightly less toxic than for the Brits, of whom he thinks: "They were Arabists by education, anti-Semites by breeding, and still resented the Jews for driving the Empire out of Palestine" (50).

Silva addresses that question of motive with (very brief) allusions to the death of Gabriel's own son, but this is too glib, at least as it is presented. We see no inner struggle over the issue from Gabriel, none of the interiority we have been taught to expect by the early novels. And the commercial transaction in Chapter 62 is extremely distasteful, even if read ironically.

And then there are the careless errors, of which I'll mention two. In London, Gabriel remarks on page 49 that it's getting dark in December London at 3:30pm, but Silva evidently forgets about latitude two weeks later when "first light" appears at 6:30am, pg 330. On the same day, Elizabeth is driven past Camden Town to Westminster down the Tottenham Court Road, which is one-way south to north. Why be so specific only to be wrong?

These errors are minor, minor things (although Silva corrects equally minor things in his Author's Note.) But they are also straws in an ill wind. The Prince of Fire Prince of Fire is an epic adventure carefully crafted, a visceral thriller that engages the intellect. The following book, The Messenger, is the least-engaging of Silva's novels until this one, The Secret Servant. That's a bad trend.

Judging the book by Silva's own standards, I have to find it missing the mark. If Amazon gave half-stars, this would get 3.5, but I'll check 4 in honor of the earlier books. Let's hope Silva takes a sabbatical and returns to his earlier brilliance.

(For a series that's still getting better with each book, see Lee Child's Reacher novels. The Hard Way (Jack Reacher Novels) Bad Luck and TroubleThere's not much for the life of the mind, but the tension is extreme and you'll care about the people.)

5 out of 5 stars

Another wonderful and frightening Allon book August 2, 2007
11 out of 23 found this review helpful

Silva writes with such grace, and very clearly sees the world as it is now, or as it is becoming. Gabriel Allon is a Israeli operative who also happens to be a master art restorer. He is brought into intruige in London when he is minutes too late the stop the kidnapping of the U.S. ambassador's daughter in Hyde Park - and there is more bloodshed in London. The game is on to recover the girl and to stop any more violence.
Silva takes us to a frightfully realistic journey into terrorist mind - and theories about what he terms 'Londonistan' and the anger of the never ending conflict. The action is nonstop and in the midst of all the horror there is a very sweet interlude for Allon -
It is another hit for Silva - Allon is a great character. Already looking forward to the next adventure....

Powered by Associate-O-Matic

T-shirts, Posters

Pentagram T-shirts, bags, etc...

Gothic Posters