The Kill Artist (Gabriel Allon Book 1)

Love Daniel Silva and his Gabriel Allon character. Read every book in the series as new ones come out. Got this one for my son who is a Mitch Rapp fan as am I. Interesting to see another country’s perspective of us and our politics that affect the world. Great reading every time.

This was an excellent book. However I will not be reading any more of this series. Why? Because I usually read books before I go to sleep, to help me fall asleep. But this book was so suspenseful I couldn’t sleep. It was too good at what it’s supposed to do. Maybe if I have a beach vacation again or am taking long trips in a plane. But definitely not for reading at night in bed to help me fall asleep.

Late to the world of Gabriel Allon. A friend recommended I start at book one. Done. Now I will follow this character with eager eyes as I read the words written by Daniel Silva. He’s a wordsmith.

Good pace, interesting characters. Pretty standard formula but a couple of good twists. Worth the read! I’ll be diving into this series

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.Here's what I got out of the book when I put it down.The Best Israeli agent does nothing right. Is out thunk, out fought, and then shot. The Head of Israeli Intelligence is ruthless, but effective. The woman agent loves the Best Israeli agent. The Terrorist is better, smarter and more interesting than the other 3 combined.Also, Yasar arafat is psychic, caring and brilliant. The President of the US likes to have Yasar Arafat come by the White House in the middle of night to keep him company when he's bored. More about the plight and horrors the Palestinians have went through then you could possibly digest in one sitting. And Israel ain't so hot...but, it is ruthless and merciless.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.There was more posturing and lead up, than action in the book. Gabriel could have been a great protagonist, but the author didn't want him to be for some reason. Maybe in "making him human," he went a little overboard and made him too ineffectual. I dunno, but he sure wasn't very impressive. Not at all.Overall, I thought this book was sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, and harsh against the Israeli cause. There were some mentions of atrocities against Israel, but they paled in comparison to the number and depth in which the Palestinian atrocities were explained. It wasn't even close. And some of the treatment of the Palestinians in this book was totally absurd...especially when it came to Arafat.I mean, when the President of the United States calls up Arafat in the middle of the night (he was already in DC for the peace talks)...just to come over to the White House and hang out with him because he was bored, I literally laughed out loud. Arafat also smells bombs, reads minds and has the force of personality to change peoples lives with a couple of sentences.I mean, seriously?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.Looking at the authors source material and research, it seems he did a lot of background reading on Israel. And you would think he would be a little more sympathetic to Israel. But, then I read he used "Wolf Blitzer" to learn about Israeli Intelligence...and I laughed out loud again. lol.Anyway, Silva is a good writer. The fact that the way some of this story was presented irritated me, doesn't reflect on Silva's writing ability. I still was fairly engrossed in the story line, even if irritatingly engrossed...lol Could have used a lot more action tho, and I like my protagonists to be larger than life, not incompetent.However, maybe Silva was making Tariq the protagonist...because he fit the bill of the larger than life, competent protagonist more than did Gabriel.Oh, well. I will probably try one more of these books and see how it goes. If I come away feeling the same, I probably won't continue reading Silva. But, willing to give it a shot...because it's obvious he can write.SFUPDATE (4-15-14): Just finished reading about 10 more of these books. Guess I ended up liking them. lol. So, I thought I needed to update my review here.I don't know what happened, but the series completely reversed itself after this. The plight of Israel and the story of its people really became much more focused. I learned a GREAT deal about them through this series. It was truly an eye opener for me. It was done very well. Gabriel also became MUCH more competent after this. It turned out to be a great series.I dunno if I was just wrong in my initial review...or that someone sat down with Silva and had a heart to heart with him. But, the series really picked up after this first book. I highly recommend it.SF

This is a good story - for the most part - the first in the Gabriel Allon series. (You do not have to read them in the order written to enjoy them thoroughly.)The plot was actually quite simple, and the number of characters and the number of venues were (thankfully) kept to a minimum. Keep in mind that all the characters are severely damaged human beings, a result of the never-ending life-and-death struggle between Jews and Arabs, and while many are smart and beautiful, they make human mistakes of emotion and bad judgment. No one in this book is unscathed by his or her own history. See Italo Calvino's "If on a Winter's Night a Traveler" for an exposition on how one cannot escape one's past.Gabriel, the main guy, is an assassin re-recruited by Israeli Intelligence to carry out an assignment. As such he is mildly likable and considerably unlikable, all at the same time. Due to a tragedy that killed his son and permanently hospitalized his wife (who now resides in a psychiatric sanatorium) events for which he blames himself, Gabriel suffers from guilt and self-hatred, equal to the depth of his need for revenge against the one Palestinian who perpetrated the evil deed on his family. The psychological part of the story describes Gabriel's inability to move on, love again, and make himself whole. Thus, he is a complicated and maddeningly difficult man, whose skills are two: killing people and restoring art masterpieces. The boy Peel, at the story's beginning and at the end, is a great addition to the story and to the humanizing of Gabriel.There's a bit too much "I gotcha" at the end with revelations of a double agent, and the entire scenario in Montreal could have been totally slashed from the story with no loss whatsoever to the integrity of the story.As is common these days in books like this, there is TMI (too much information) about just about everything, thus resulting in a 486 page book when it should have been about 325 pages long. See anything written by Alan Furst for tight, espionage thriller stuff. There is good tension and good pacing, however, but this book is NOT a "page-turner."Jacqueline, the fem fatale, turns out to be interesting and fierce, but the situations Silva puts her in to further the story are somewhat contrived. In the end, she lacks the believability of the main male characters. There were times when over-the-top chauvinism and mild misogyny surfaced unnecessarily and irritatingly.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.Now, the plot resolution: Naturally, since this is the first of a series, a lot of threads are left untied. But, really, shouldn't a poor reader be tossed a morsel or two of final solution?Technically it's a 5, but from a readability standpoint it falls to slightly under a 4. But, all-in-all, I liked the book. I just get a little tired of all the political preaching and "woe-is-me" hand-wringing - the Palestinians on one side and the Israelis on the other. Over time, it simply gets boring. At least Silva treats the geopolitical-religious-social dilemma with relative balance. This book is not necessarily simply a paean to the ultra-conservative right-wing apologists who want to kill anyone who does not "believe" as they do.

It ain’t high literature but it works as a page turner. This was my first Silva novel and I will read at least one more. The writing is serviceable, the dialogue works. His descriptions of place and weather fit nicely. The political/historical parts are trickier to get right.Like Le Carre’s Little Drummer Girl, there is a solid effort to present the Palestinian POV, though condemning the bloody terrorism. Le Carre’s writing is more engaging, has more depth. There are scenes in both where you hold your breath. Only you hold it longer in Le Carre. The male protagonists in both books are reluctant anti-hero archetypes. The women in both are innocents caught up in the righteous violence both sides.Hopefully, Silva later books improve.

... de uma série sobre espionagem e assassinato.Mas não só isso.Daniel Silva faz um mergulho na mente dos personagens, nem sempre bem conduzido, porém com padrão muito mais elevado do que um simples romance policial de gato e rato.Há História, relações humanas, politica, o quinto poder e Arte.Algo de que não gostei foi o estilo meio repetitivo para acontecimentos relativos a todos os personagens; apesar de cada personagem ter sua própria voz, a maneira como são revividos acontecimentos ou mesmo trazidas à tona ações do passado são praticamente iguais o que cansa em uma leitura longa como é esse livro.

I really loved it! Really is an amazing book to read filled with plot twists and action! Highly recommend it

First time I read D. Silva. Very exciting, good story, vivid and hard to put down. Ordered the following 3 books. Let's see if it is a keeper.

I found this title through to someone's review of a completely different book referencing this one. Glad I tried it, it was a fun read! It could have had more action and a quicker pace, otherwise it would have gotten 5 stars from me. I appreciated it not being about Americans for once, although they do play a minor part (which is fine).I also liked that the story doesn't do obvious tropes like the MC automatically "getting the girl", or having no character flaws.The author seems to have visited all of the story's locations himself, judging from all of the details he describes. Which adds a lot of interest if by any chance the reader has visited any of the places too (for me, they were the Bloemenmarkt in Amsterdam, Jerusalem, and Israel as a whole.)Will definitely try the second title in this apparently quite large series.

As all silva's "allon" (but I'd say "osbourne" too) novels, it's marvellous, incredibly entertaining. Never wanna leave the reading while ur in it.