The Kill Artist: (Gabriel Allon 1)

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While serving in this position, Silva met his soon-to-be wife, Jamie Gangel, who happened to be the national correspondent for NBC Today. The couple was married during the latter end of 1987 and returned to Washington together, where they resided. Silva’s wife Jamie found work with CNN, becoming an executive producer for several of the network’s popular talk shows, including Reliable Sources and Crossfire. Forget about solving all these crimes; the signal triumph here is (spoiler) the heroine’s survival. Shamron, the key Israeli Intelligence Officer who masterminds the entire scenario, is a well-drawn character, ruthless and scheming, but rather neutral from a reader's perspective. He is shrewd and largely unpleasant. The operation that follows is a tortuous affair, marked by departmental wrangling, hidden political agendas, and wheels within wheels. The action unfolds in a series of crisp, tightly constructed set pieces that range from the capitals of Europe (Paris, London, Lisbon) to Jerusalem itself, with intermittent stops in Montreal, New York City, and Washington, DC. Characters caught up in the drama include a London-based art dealer who has fallen on hard times, a Rupert Murdoch- style media magnate, and a world famous fashion model whose glossy, high-profile lifestyle conceals her tragic family history, and her occasional role as a clandestine operative for the Israeli secret service.

Anyway, if this would have centered around Tariq more and Gabriel less...it would have been MUCH more interesting. If you want to be sympathetic to the Palestinians, fine. Trying to be "fair and balanced...and look at both sides" is good up to a point. But, I think this went a little overboard with making the Israelis look like bumbling fools on the one hand...ruthless and merciless on the other hand. I mean, to be fair...you could have shown the Palestinians that way as well and have been just as accurate. The Story was ok. But, it should have probably centered more around the Terrorist. He was more interesting than the Israeli agent (Gabriel). The Israeli agent really didn't do anything right, from the beginning to the end. He had a legendary reputation, but it sure didn't come from anything he did in this book. The Terrorist did everything right, then became the compassionate one in the end. Nothing happens for ten days. Gabriel meets again with Ari Shamron and asks the Jacqueline be pulled out. Shamron refuses and tells Gabriel to take some time. Gabriel visits his wife Leah, whom most people believe to have been killed in Vienna, at the Stratford Clinic; she does not recognize him. Gabriel also speaks with Leonard Avery, Leah's doctor, who recommends trying a new drug; Gabriel approves. One of the epigraphs of the book is the motto of the Israeli secret service, the Mossad: "By way of deception, thou shalt do war." It turns out that in various ways this motto applies just as much to the workings within the Israeli secret service as it does to their dealings with their enemies. Towards the end of the novel, Yassir Arafat alludes to just that aspect when he says of Ari Shamron, "Shamron makes a habit of never letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing." How does Shamron employ this method through the course of the plan to assassinate Tariq? In many ways his plan is a brilliant success as a result. What negative consequences result from his method?

Publication Order of Michael Osbourne Books

I’m always surprised when a premise of a book sounds so good – a perfect swish, and then the book itself is like a big old airball. Meet Gabriel Allon: super spy, art restorerer, tortured soul, handsome, ruthless, boring.

Gabriel Allon's work as one of the world's foremost art restorers has significant parallels to his work as one of the world’s foremost intelligence operatives. Indeed, the part titles of The Kill Artist allude to these parallels: Part One, "Acquisition"; Part Two, "Assessment"; and Part Three, "Restoration." What are the various parallels suggested by these part titles? What are the similarities between Gabriel's work in art restoration and his work in intelligence operations? The goal of the art restorer is to restore a painting so well that it's nearly impossible to tell the difference between the restorer's work and the original artist's. How is a similar kind of deception and layering of identity a part of intelligence work? The Kill Artist” suffered from some “too cute” plot devices and some too easily wrapped up plot points, and from a ridiculous scene with Yasir Arafat and the main bad guy in the text, a terrorist named Tariq. Book is basically about the Israeli Intelligence community and it's ongoing fight against terrorism. 4 main characters. The head of the Israeli Intelligence (Ari.) The best Israeli agent (Gabriel.) A woman Israeli agent (Jacqueline.) And the Best Palestinian Terrorist (Tariq.) The terrorist wants to kill some bigshots before he dies and derail the peace process...while the Israeli's want to stop him from doing that.In Vienna in January 1991, Gabriel Allon, using the alias Mario Delvecchio, finishes his work as an art restorer for the day and dines with his wife Leah and son Dani. As the Leah and Dani are preparing to return to Israel, their car explodes, killing Dani and severely injuring Leah. This is a stylish spy thriller with the ‘cold' war of the twentieth century superseded by the ‘secret’ war in the middle-east and its international support network. There are harrowing descriptions of atrocities committed against Palestinians held in refugee camps of Beirut - which Israel chose to ignore - and a killer haunted by the deaths he committed in the service of his country.