When you read "The English Spy," you long for a list of important characters---like you might find at the beginning of a play (dramatis personae); lacking that, a pile of post-its might help you slug through the maze of people and places. Beginning with the murder of a princess pretty clearly based on the beloved Diana, Graham Seymour, Director General of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service and the former Chief of Counterterrorism at MN15 in l998, the year of the Good Friday Peace Accord in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland is determined to find and eliminate the assassin. His elusive and super-competent target is Eamon Quinn, one of two men who delivered the fatal bomb in Omagh and caught in history's curious web of false warnings and a way-too-late apology by the IRA. The move to reinstate Ireland as one nation (26+6=1 is still a bumper sticker one sees occasionally there) suffered, some say, irreparable damage; others might say anything that led to the Good Friday Peace Accord created martyrs and angels of the people Quinn supposedly wanted to die there. Silva is really skilled at blending facts of incidents like this with his fictional characters and places which lends the thriller the presentation of a historical novel rather than a spy read. It's part of the pleasure of the read.
The Reach is extensive: the Middle East, Russia (and the Russian President who behaves curiously like a Westerner's view of Putin), London, Vienna, Lisbon. And Seymour is a primary character as is Gabriel Allon, Israel's "avenging angel" spy-assassin-art restoration expert. It's Gabriel Allon, who wonders (about 3/4 of the way through the novel) if he had not picked up and returned a copy of "A Room With A View" in the lap of the lovely young woman at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg whether the Prime Minister would ever have had a Russian lover. Gabriel seems to have leadership qualities which impact the course of written history: he rescues the daughter of an American Ambassador, he despises a Russian arms dealer (Kharkov), he's against a Saudi financier of terror, and he fakes his own death. When Samantha Cooke, an able and would-be ethical writer for the London Telegraph, reports that death as a part of the intrigue, the Imam of a London mosque says that the death is "long overdue and a gift from Allah to Palestine and Islam." but the reader knows even imams can be fooled.
There is, of course, betrayal at home (Yuri Volkov), his curious "suicide," the triumph of the English spy (Christopher Keller), and some wonderfully Irish moments. When a detective realizes he's dealing with four dead bodies in various locations and international scandal, he asks Gabriel if there is anything else he can reveal. Gabriel says, "There's tea in the pantry and a sleeve of McVitie's too." And "priests speak of resurrection but in bars men speak of revenge." And at one of those bars, Quinn drinks the foam off his Guinness and has a look around the room: "The smell of wood polish and beer, the soft murmur of Armagh-accented voices; after all the years in hiding, all the years of selling his services to the highest bidder, he was finally home again." It's hard to believe such an intelligent and shrewd Irishman who loves his Guinness would develop bombs in Tehran to use against British and American forces in Iraq. But so it goes. The characters aren't caricatures; they become real people.
Readers re-learn spy-stuff: mistakes come back to haunt us and all debts come due, you start with easy questions (eg DOB, names of parents, schools...) and then escalate to eliciting information for the now. Who fires the shot is less important than who pays for the shot. The Belfast Disease = always have an escape route---sit in the back next to an exit, don't sit near glass windows. Though the British triumph in this novel, the Irish give it a good go. Graham is described as a "devious bastard" and the response is "He's British. It comes naturally."
Art lovers will appreciate the references: a cottage in Gunwalloe fishing cove is reminiscent of Monet's Customs Officials Cabin at Pourville. In adding the final touches to clouds painted in the nursery of expected twins, Gabriel paints Titianesque clouds with a wee boy-angel peering over the edge of one: "the figure was borrowed from Veronese's Virgin and Child in Glory with the Saints."
A final admonition for Americans as we approach an election year: "American Presidents come and go, but...spies endure!"
This is a fast paced read and readers do well to read it All in a couple of days lest the characters elude you. It helps to imagine faces---maybe cast Liam Neeson, Colin Farrell, Dan Stevens, and Colm Meaney in this one, and then you could keep the characters straight. It would make a splendid movie.
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Popular Highlights in this book
The American president had allowed the old order to topple without a viable alternative in place, a reckless act with no precedent in modern statecraft. And for some reason he had chosen this moment in time to throw Israel to the wolves.Highlighted by 497 Kindle readers- Hamburg had more canals and bridges than Amsterdam and Venice combined.Highlighted by 260 Kindle readers
- Our mistakes always come back to haunt us. And eventually all debts come due.Highlighted by 221 Kindle readers
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Reviews with images
So Great, Leaves Me Longing for More!
I loved reading this new Daniel Silva book and I gave it a five star, but I feel in order to understand all the characters and their interaction, a reader needs to have read the previous Gabriel Allon adventures. I started reading this series with number 3, "The Confessor", and realized I needed to go back and read the first novel, "The Kill Artist". From that moment, I have been reading and loving all 15 books in this series. So, I highly recommend you read all , starting with this one, because there is so much more to the story!
Top reviews from other countries
Catherina Wilcocks
A really good and believable spy thriller.
Reviewed in Germany on May 3, 2021Anushka Mitra
Kept my heart racing throughout
Reviewed in India on September 11, 2019