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.
The leaders of the Crux Vera, a church within the Catholic Church devoted to reversing the effects of the Reformation and the Enlightenment, are uneasy about Paul VII, the new pope. Hard on the heels of the conservative Pole, he causes tremendous consternation when he perseveres in a search for the facts about Pius XII's role in the Holocaust. Gabriel Allon, a master art restorer and part-time Israeli agent (seen in The English Assassin), has an old friend whose research is getting close to the truth. When he is murdered, Gabriel is reactivated and joins battle with an assassin nicknamed the Leopard. Silva, who here loads new excitement into the word thriller, will touch nerves with this hypothetical exploration of the Church's silence on these topics. The Vatican, Venice, and Munich are perfectly drawn as the settings for these dark acts of ambition, greed, and revenge, as are the characters, whom you'd scarcely believe live only on the page. For popular collections everywhere.-Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.
"If you think Italians have a long memory, you should spend some time in the Middle East. We're the ones who invented the vendetta, not the Sicilians." So maintains Gabriel Allon, art restorer and Mossad hit man, star of Silva's second thriller series (The Mark of the Assassin, etc.). Gabriel is once again reluctantly dragged from his day job (he's working on a Bellini in Venice) by Israeli spymaster Ari Shamron, who heads a team of sleeper Mossad agents scattered all over the world. This time, it's a revenge mission: one of Shamron's agents (an academic working on an expos about the Vatican's collaboration with the Nazis) has been assassinated. The gunman was working for a secret Vatican society known as Crux Vera. Composed of Roman Curia members and shady rich thugs, this shadow group intends to kill the latest pope to keep him from exposing the Vatican's secret archives. In order to find the gunman (known as "the Leopard," a reclusive European of independent means who hires out his deadly skills to the highest bidder), Gabriel must take up his slain colleague's research, something the Italian and German governments assuredly do not want him to do. Gabriel is hounded all across Europe as he tries to find out the truth about the Nazi collaborators, save the pope and get the Leopard. Silva draws on bizarre WWII secrets uncovered by historians like Susan Zuccotti (whom Silva credits) for his premise. Though the plot sticks close to Silva's well-honed formula, the provocative historical revelations will keep readers enthralled. (Feb.) Forecast: National advertising and a radio satellite tour should insure Silva's usual robust sales. Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.
Praise for Daniel Silva and The Confessor
"A shrewd, timely thriller that opens the heart of the
Vatican."-Chicago Tribune
"Daniel Silva has now indisputably joined the ranks of
Graham Greene and John Le Carre."-The Washingtonian
"Utterly compelling...uncommonly
intelligent."-Booklist (starred review)
"Accomplished...elegantly written...a compelling piece of fiction,
one that manages to be both superior entertainment and a hard look
at serious issues."-The Washington Post
"Provocative historical revelations will keep readers
enthralled."-Publishers Weekly
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