In this sixth book of the Gabriel Allon spy series, we read about suicide bombers attacking the Vatican, al Qaeda and Saudi/American political relations, the CIA and the Israeli secret service. But this is no ordinary spy thriller, as Daniel Silva writes well, researches in depth and educates the reader in another heart-stopping story that includes Jewish history, current events and political intrigue while weaving in art history and art restoration. The Messenger is so realistic that it’s hard to believe that today’s breaking news reports are not a continuation of the book’s events.
As an avid fan of this series, I was lucky to meet Silva at a lunchtime book talk at the New York Public Library recently. He has a serious, intelligent, wellgroomed presence like Gabriel Allon, and has been told they are more alike than he knows. He said when writing the series, Allon’s eyes are his eyes, and Allon’s viewpoint is his. Silva says he works at a steady clip, seven days a week, living a monastic and rigorous schedule when working to produce his best-selling books. He finds taking a day off during the five to six month process to be traumatic. Silva calls himself a library rat, researching his subjects thoroughly and writing in a “staid and structured way, preferring complete sentences including a noun and verb and no foul language,” unlike some contemporary spy fiction writers. Sometimes real life events have overlapped with Silva’s fiction, causing him to “catch history in the act” as when Yasir Arafat died while he was writing Prince of Fire. He “uses fact as a foundation, then leads the reader through a doorway into his fictional world.” He said that Gabriel’s work with old master paintings brings in the beauty of restoration work in sharp contrast to his occupation as spymaster/assassin. The author said that Allon has grown more pessimistic since the collapse of the Oslo accords and 9/11. Silva says he wouldn’t want to hang out with Allon because he makes people uncomfortable and has a touch of melancholy and some neuroses. A fan told Silva that she was sure he was a child of Holocaust survivors since in her view as a second generation survivor, he has captured the dynamics eerily well. The fictional Allon is the son of a survivor and refers throughout the series to his mother’s experiences at the hands of the Nazis in chilling detail. I told Daniel Silva that I believe he’s great “P.R.” for Israel, educating the public about current events and background. Although he would not own up to that role, I sensed agreement in the faces of the diverse crowd who came to meet him. Silva said he is never bored with Gabriel Allon and that his next novel will, without a doubt, feature this fictional character. Although the subject matter and pace of the Allon series keeps fans up all night, Silva’s readers eagerly await the next installment.
Miriam Bradman Abrahams, mom, grandmom, avid reader, sometime writer, born in Havana, raised in Brooklyn, residing in Long Beach on Long Island. Longtime former One Region One Book chair and JBC liaison for Nassau Hadassah, currently presenting Incident at San Miguel with author AJ Sidransky who wrote the historical fiction based on her Cuban Jewish refugee family’s experiences during the revolution. Fluent in Spanish and Hebrew, certified hatha yoga instructor.