2014 Longlist
After narrowly surviving his last operation, Gabriel Allon, the wayward son of Israeli intelligence, has taken refuge behind the walls of the Vatican, where he is restoring one of Caravaggio’s greatest masterpieces. But early one morning he is summoned to St. Peter’s Basilica by Monsignor Luigi Donati, the all-powerful private secretary to His Holiness Pope Paul VII. The body of a beautiful woman lies broken beneath Michelangelo’s magnificent dome. The Vatican police suspect suicide, though Gabriel believes otherwise. So, it seems, does Donati, who calls upon Gabriel to quietly pursue the truth-with one caveat.
Gabriel soon learns that the dead woman had uncovered a dangerous secret that threatens a global criminal enterprise involved in looting timeless treasures of antiquity. But there is more to this dark network than just greed. And unless Gabriel can prevent a mysterious operative from committing a devastating act of sabotage, the world will be plunged into a conflict of apocalyptic proportions . . .
(From Publisher)
About the Author
Daniel Silva is the number one 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, and The Fallen Angel. He is married to NBC News Today correspondent Jamie Gangel; they live in Washington, D.C., with their two children, Lily and Nicholas. In 2009 Silva was appointed to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.