Daniel Silva series is thrilling

TOVA KORNFELD

This is the continuation of a series coordinated by the Isaac Waldman Jewish Public Library and the Jewish Independent, featuring local community members reviewing books that they have recently read.

I must confess that I generally do not like spy stories, but I happened by chance upon one of Daniel Silva's thrillers and could not put it down. Silva is a Jewish mix of John le Carre and Graham Green.

His mainstay protagonist, Gabriel Allon, is a former Mossad agent whose credentials include being part of the elite team that assassinated the 12 Black September terrorists in retaliation for the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre. In his civilian life, Allon is a renowned art restorer. The incongruity of these two professions, the ruthless killer and the gentle artist, provides a unique perspective on the world of high stakes espionage.

I will review two of the nine Allon books. It is a good idea to read the novels in chronological order, though it is not necessary. The books in the series are The Kill Artist, The English Assassin, The Confessor, A Death in Vienna, Prince of Fire, The Messenger, The Secret Servant, Moscow Rules and The Defector.

While the books are fiction, the plots are based on actual events. It is obvious that Silva does meticulous research and gets his facts straight. So, not only do you get a spine-tingling read, you also have an accurate historical account that puts the story into proper context.

In The Confessor, a Jewish scholar and former Mossad agent, Benjamin Stern, working on a book to expose the Vatican and its inaction during the Second World War, is murdered in his Munich home. Who is behind the murder and why was Stern killed? Allon is called out of retirement to track down the killer. Meanwhile, the Pope is committed to pursuing reconciliation with world Jewry and sets up a press conference in the Great Synagogue in Rome to make an announcement that he will open the secret archives of the Vatican. Opposition from within the curia sets the stage for a plot to assassinate him. Allon, on the trail of Stern's murderer, is drawn into this plot.

His journey twists and turns seductively through Europe and the Middle East amid cardinals, clergy, spies, assassins, secret societies and secret police, leading finally to an Italian convent, where the ultimate dark secret is revealed: the convent was the site for meetings in 1942 between Vatican authorities and high-ranking Nazi officials to discuss the "Jewish Question." Allon now becomes a central figure in the effort to stop the Pope's assassin and get Stern's killer, likely one and the same person. The surprise ending is a nail biter.

I was compelled after my read to do some independent research on the position of Pius XII, who reigned as Pope from 1939-1958, on the Final Solution. There appears to be some controversy as to whether he kept silent and appeased the Nazis or whether in reality he was responsible for saving thousands of Jews. As Silva notes at the end of his book, the search for truth on this issue is complicated by the Vatican's refusal to open its archives to the public.

In October 1999, in an effort to calm the Pius XII controversy, the Vatican created a commission of six independent historians, three Jewish and three Catholic, to assess the behavior of those in the Vatican during the war years. The commission concluded that it needed to view material from the secret archives to complete its mandate but the Vatican would not cooperate and the commission disbanded in 2001.

The controversy continues today. An inscription at Israel's Yad Vashem states that the Pope took no initiatives to save Jews during the war. These events were Allon's inspiration for The Confessor that, in many ways, is a scathing indictment of the Catholic Church's past and yet, also provides hope for the future.

Prince of Fire finds Allon restoring art in Venice when a suicide bomber drives a truck laden with explosives into the Israeli embassy in Rome, killing scores. The Mossad moves in to find the terrorists behind the attack and eliminate them. It becomes apparent that the terrorists know about Allon and are monitoring his movements. He is called back to Israel to assist in tracking down the murderers.

The timeline for the story moves from 1910 Turkish-ruled Palestine, through the British Mandate period, and to Israel's wars with her Arab neighbors until the present time. Through it all, Silva provides the historical perspective for his readers to better understand the long-standing animus between Palestinians and Jews. The Palestinian side of the story is told through the eyes of the al-Khalifa family and spans three generations, culminating with the grandson, Khaled al-Khalifa, a terrorist who has made it his life's work to seek revenge for past wrongs against his people. He has lived in France for years disguised as an archeologist and uses this cover to orchestrate deadly acts of revenge across Europe. He sets out on a complicated path to lure Allon to France where Allon's wife, who has been kidnapped from a hospital in England, is being held. As we are drawn into the story, it is hard to determine who is the hunter and who is the hunted. Allon grapples with the dilemma to save his wife or the countless innocents targeted by suicide bombers? The ending is unexpected and thoroughly satisfying.

In both books, the language is crisp and clear, the pace fast and furious, and the pages literally turn themselves. The books are geared towards an adult audience but older teenagers will also enjoy the action.

Silva was a journalist working in Cairo before taking a Washington, D.C.-based job with CNN as an executive producer of Crossfire and Capital Gang. Each of his novels has been a bestseller. In January 2009, Silva was appointed to the United States Holocaust Museum's Memorial council.

Tova Kornfeld is a local writer and lawyer.

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