The Other Woman is the first of Daniel Silva's books I've read, but it won't be the last.
Fans of Le Carre and Forsyth will easily slip into Silva's world - in this series that of his fictitious head of Israel's secret service, Gabriel Allon. What sets Silva apart from his predecessors, in a good way, is the quirkily realistic appeal of his characters.
Gabriel Allon, as well as being his country's top spy and an assassin of note, is an art restorer and a very likeable chap.
Even the baddies in this story aren't all that bad - I wouldn't kick any of them out of a dinner party. When agents are compromised into giving up their secrets they do so, in this story at least, with a pragmatic 'fair cop', and start planning their lives under new identities in witness protection. I'd like to think it's like that in real life.
That's not to say there isn't the occasional extra judicial killing in The Other Woman. The ambushes and hits are unexpected and keep the pages turning while the reader contemplates the book's central question - who is the Russian mole hidden somewhere in the highest echelons of western intelligence.
It's an old story which, cleverly and ironically, is given new life by linking it back to one of the oldest and best-known true stories of the cold war.
If there was one thing that rankled me, slightly, about my first Daniel Silva book it was the few-too-many references to Gabriel Allon's previous lives and loves in preceding books in the series - I now know how some of them end. That started me wondering if I do the same thing, too often, in my Sonja Kurtz series of novels, so my only criticism of The Other Woman is a positive - for me at least.
I don't pretend to be the sharpest sleuth as a reader, but I guessed the mole fairly early on. I wonder if that, too, was a trap laid by this clever bestselling author. As I coasted towards the end, full of self-satisfied smugness, I didn't see the final twist coming.
The Other Woman is a Cracker. 4.75 out of 5.
Published by Harper Collins
Tony Park
Hi Tony,
ReplyDeleteI have all of your books, the last one is un-signed by you but no doubt I'll get it done sometime.
Daniel Silva is my other author that I follow and I have all of his books as well.
The Order is his latest and makes a very good read.
Regards
Albert