By Bob Tedder • Daniel Silva surpasses the gold standard of modern espionage novels. His 2016 offering “The Black Widow” is a 24-carat continuation of the chronicles of Gabriel Allon, an art restorer turned agent who is Silva’s personification of “The Office’s” (read Mossad between his thinly veiled lines) most favored operative.
Although this is Allon’s 16th appearance, this book may be read as a standalone volume. Silva himself does not discourage this approach. He does, however, suggest that if one desires to continue the series, then read the rest in order.
All of Silva’s tales provide cautionary and frightfully predictive glimpses of a world beset by international terrorism. “The Black Widow” is no exception to this rule. Allon, an unusually talented agent, is on track to become “The Office’s” new director. Circumstances, however, dictate otherwise and Allon returns to the field in response to a series of ISIS-inspired bombings. Suspecting the United States will be the next target for ISIS’s new masterplanner known only as Saladin, Allon chooses the risky course of inserting an agent into his opponent’s self-proclaimed caliphate. Natalie Mizrahi, an extraordinary Jewish doctor, becomes Allon’s newest protege tasked with uncovering the plot and identifying the mysterious Saladin.
From this premise the story earns its well-deserved appellation of action novel. Silva cleverly constructed this reading adventure; all of Allon’s exploits and much of his fictional life are bolstered by staggering amounts of research seamlessly woven into the fabric of the tale. Historical, geographical and current events all combine to ensure the reader’s mental motion picture has a familiarity that becomes discomforting as events unfold. Silva, like a skilled director, uses narrative jump cuts as his novel races to its thunderous conclusion. While the credits roll you will want to see the sequel, novel number 17, “The House of Spies” – but only if you have followed Silva’s advice. I concur; read the other 15. You will enjoy them all.