Customer Reviews

Confessor

5 star:		(72)
4 star:		(32)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Each year I look forward to Daniel Silva's new thriller. The Confessor was worth the wait. After starting off slowly, the novel quickly picks up steam.

As is usual with a suspense novel, there are a few plots to keep track of, three in The Confessor. Though it is hard to remember the various characters at first, they quickly become integral parts of the novel. Silva develops his characters wonderfully. None are faultless, but all are a joy to read about.

Readers of The Kill Artist and The English Assassin will be familiar with The Confessor's protagonist, Gabreil Allon. This book takes place a few years after the events of The English Assassin. Gabriel is restoring a fresco in a Venetian church when Ari Shamron, his sometimes spymaster, comes to him with a job. Gabriel's friend and fellow spy, Benjamin Stern, had been killed. Shamron wants Gabriel to investigate the death. Gabriel reluctantly accepts and goes off to Munich. It is there that the book really begins.

Gabriel uncovers evidence that Stern had gone to Italy while in the process of researching a book that he (Stern) was writing. As the novel progresses, Gabriel investigates and unearths a conspiracy in the Catholic Church. Like all other Silva novels, The Confessor has a healthy dose of breathless chase scenes, exotic European locales, and multiple assumed identities. The Confessor will be enjoyed by all fans of Silva's earlier work, and those with an interest in international intrigue.

Realistic and thought-provoking, THE CONFESSOR is actually speculative historical fiction about the role of the Catholic Church during WW II. Since the Vatican has chosen not to open the Secret Archives, the public (and gifted authors)can only speculate about the role of the Catholic Church and particularly Pope Pius XII as Hitler was devastating Europe and carrying out his Final Solution.

Daniel Silva uses the center of power of the Roman Catholic Church, a newly chosen Pope and the powerful men of the Vatican, as key elements of the plot in this realistic thriller. As familiar protagonist Gabriel Allon is restoring a painting of the Virgin by Bellini, he is summoned by the enigmatic Israeli, Ari Shamron, to investigate the murder of Gabriel's writer friend Benjamin Stern who had been gathering information about the role of the Church during WWII and the effects on the Jewish people.

Naturally, Gabriel answers the call. During his investigation, he meets several intriguing and mysterious characters, encounters many close calls requiring his skills of deception, and undergoes formidable personal challenges on his journey to uncover the truth. Therein lies the power of Silva's writing. He is able to involve the reader in the characters and their development throughout a complex, absorbing plot while maintaining realism and emotional depth. He uses the continuity of the characters' past, especially Gabriel Allon, by referring to events which occurred in his previous novels. This adds color and intensity to the characters, making their behavior more realistic and the plot more believable.

THE CONFESSOR is another bold, well-written thriller by an author who has maintained a high standard of thought-provoking, realistic novels since he burst on the spy-fiction suspense scene with AN UNLIKELY SPY. This latest addition to his highly regarded body of work should interest, entertain, and challenge you; it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Daniel Silva brings back his enigmatic hero, Gabriel Allon, in "The Confessor," to investigate the mysterious murder of a dear friend, the unpopular aspirations of a newly elected Pope, a secret society in the Vatican, and long hidden secrets from World War II. Allon, is a brilliant Israeli art restorer and a complex, melancholy man. He had worked for many years as an Israeli intelligence agent, and assassin, (when necessary), losing his young son and wife to violence as a consequence of his work. Now he just wants to restore paintings and be left alone with his grief and his guilt.

Allon's boyhood friend and associate, Benjamin Stern, is murdered in his Munich apartment while writing a secret expose on Pope Pius XII and the Church's involvement in the Holocaust. Ari Shamron, Gabriel's old mentor, former head of Israeli intelligence, and the father of Ben Stern, finds Allon in Venice, restoring a Bellini altarpiece. He has little difficulty persuading Allon to accept this assignment to find Stern's killer, even though it means leaving the Bellini, at least temporarily.

Although Allon runs into a stone wall with his investigation in Munich, he begins to discover clues to the secrets of his friend's manuscript. Apparently Stern had been writing about material from top secret Vatican archives that proves Pope Pius XII, and the Church, were directly involved with the Nazis in the implementation of the Holocaust. Evidence also points to a deadly secret Vatican society, the Crux Vera.

Pope Paul VII, known by his Vatican detractors as "Pope Accidental," has recently been elected to the Papal Throne. He has pledged to review the Church's alleged complicity in the Nazi extermination of the Jews, and make available the Secret Vatican Archives regarding the Holocaust - archives that certain Vatican officials would do anything to keep suppressed. Allon's life, and the Pope's, are in terrible jeopardy.

Whatever your opinion on these controversial issues, Daniel Silva has written his best novel with this mesmerizing tale of Vatican politics, intrigue, murder and World War II history. Mr. Silva's style is reminiscent, but not derivative, of Ken Follett, Frederick Forsyth and John LeCarre. He is definitely in their league and oh, so original, with his 21st century relevant storyline. I have waited for a long time for an author of this caliber to appear and keep me on the edge of my seat, reading through the night. I was unable to put this book down.

With The Confessor, Silva has turned in another fine novel. It was a definite page turner - clearly to put down. In a reprise of Gabriel Allon, the art restorer and sometimes Israeli spy from previous novels, Silva spins a tale of intrigue regarding internecine battles within the modern Catholic Church. Gabriel is called on to investigate the death of a friend and fellow agent. In the process, he uncovers an effort by a powerful group within the Catholic Church at the Vatican to protect a secret regarding the church's complicity with the treatment of the Jews by the Germans in WWII. The core characters from previous efforts are complemented by a new cast of believable characters that come to life within the pages. The story provides action, excitement, intrigue and plot twists up to the very end. The effective inclusion of flashbacks add valuable context throughout the story. There is no question........this is a book worth reading.

Daniel Silva's "The Confessor" is tightly written with an intricate plot and subplots...a thinking man's international espionage thriller. Full of subtle touches that invigorate the plot...it is a sophisticated novel.

Protagonist Gabriel Allon, an art restorer/sleeper Mossad agent is chosen to investigate the murder of an author (and former Israeli agent) whose research unearths the Vatican's dirty secret. The Vatican's silence during WWII shows complicity between the Vatican and the Nazis that furthered the Holocaust.

While searching for the murderer Gabriel is hunted by both the assassin and a shadow organization within the Vatican. That organization (Vera Crux) will stop at nothing to keep the secret hidden.

Connecting the dots, Mossad uncovers a plot to assassinate the current Pope who desires to make the Vatican's covert files public.

The intrigue is intense with a multitude of richly drawn characters. The characters are introduced gradually and are well developed, eliminating the confusion often found in complicated plots. Gabriel's recapping his progress to various contacts is a skillful device that keeps the reader on track with the protagonist.

The author's notes at the conclusion, where facts take over from fiction, make the story all the more chilling.

Daniel Silva has penned a series of spy thrillers, whose main character is Gabriel Allon, an Israeli spy-assassin, doubling as an art restorer. Allon's credibility is infallible as he pledges to continue a slain colleague's attempt to reveal a secretive Vatican society.

This novel captures the tragedy of the Holocaust, recounting soberly and with sadness the Nazi atrocities, and the continued efforts of major world-players to conceal their involvement. The troubling role of the Catholic Church in the Second World War and the refusal of the Church to release its records from that period is realized through Allon's willingness to expose the truth and protect the Pope from the darkest members of the covert Vatican society.

The combination of international intrigue, fast-paced action, and institutional politics is woven together by Silva in an absorbing portrait of a crisis where human life is of no consequence to many who would kill to protect their institutions from attack.

The Pope's key role of insisting that the church live up to its ideals, together with the network of comrades who enable Allon to secure his trust, has a ring of both truth and idealism that is reassuring and heartening.

In The Confessor, Silva, as in The Kill Artist and The English Assassin, calls on his art restorer/Israeli spy-assassin, Gabriel Allon, to investigate the murder of a long-time friend and fellow spy. As part of his investigation, he uncovers a conspiracy within the Vatican pertaining to the Holocaust, which is where the real plot begins and compelling suspense builds and builds right up to its bullets flying, bodies dying ending. While Silva once again relies on what has become a successful formula for him, The Confessor kept me engrossed throughout the book. However, for me, what really made this book rise to the top of its genre is the very interesting, thought-provoking and controversial perpsective Silva provides on the Vatican's involvement (or lack thereof) during the Holocaust. I've enjoyed all of Silva's books very much and I'd consider The Confessor to be the best of the three featuring Gabriel Allon. Regardless of your personal viewpoint about the controversial subject on which the plot is based, The Confessor is a novel of slow-building but non-stop tension and suspense that will keep you glued to the edge of your seat. Highly recommended!

The Confessor by Daniel Silva is a good companion book for The English Assassin and A Death in Vienna. All three books center on Nazi themes and all feature the Israeli art restorer and part-time agent, Gabriel Allon.

In The Confessor, a visiting Israeli professor, Benjamin Stern, is murdered in Munich. Although the book never really makes it clear, it appears that Stern is the adopted son of former Israeli Secret Service chief, Ari Shamron. Shamron pulls Allon out his little church in Venice (where he is restoring a Bellini altar) and sends him to Germany to poke around. As with all Silva books, as soon as Allon discovers someone who can provide him with information, that person ends up murdered as well. The killers have made Stern's death look like a work of anti-Semitics. But the more Allon investigates, he discovers that Stern was working on an explosive and damaging book about collusion between the Nazis and the Vatican during World War II. He also finds out that a very rich and powerful secret organization within the church is trying very hard to keep this information from coming to light.

This is my third Daniel Silva mystery, and they are becoming very formulaic. There always seems to be a secret society trying to protect long-held secrets. Spies and assassins lurk in every corner, and nobody can make a move without their activities being reported. Time and time again, Allon manages to remain safe, despite the fact that dozens of individuals are trying to kill him. The Confessor has a surprise twist at the end, although I wasn't much surprised as it is similar to the twist at the end of The English Assassin. Still, The Confessor provides some information about a part of the Vatican's history that is still very cloudy and very troubling to many people--their role (or lack of one) in helping to save European Jews from the Nazis. For a person who likes reading history, The Confessor provides more than just a routine tale of suspense.

Another excellent read by Daniel Silva. It is difficult to find a Darth Vader-like villain with the death of Communism for the likes of Len Deighton, Robert Ludlum and Nelson DeMille. Silva keeps the "sins of the secret society" alive with his pursuit of the 'largest mass murderers' in the history of the world.

Here the Vatican is in the cross hairs of Mr. Silva's writing, particularly the complicity of the WWII Pope Pius 12 in turning not the other cheek but a blind eye toward the extermination policies of Eichmann and Goebbles and Der Fuhrer. Did the Vatican know? Did they do more than know? And what was the role of the secret organization crux vera? Dr. Stern was working on a book about the use of Catholic convents and churches to hide escaping Jews from the extermination policies of the Reich, Gabriel is told, 'not much of a reason to get himself killed' Gabriel muses.

These are the issues that haunt Silva's reluctant hero, Gabriel, almost like the Archangel Gabriel, surely not a coincidence, as he comes out of hiding to investigate the murder of lifetime friend Bennie Stern in Munich. The ancient Landlady of Bennie's apartment, Frau Ratzinger, gives Gabriel a prescription for a pair of Bennie's glasses and that, along with a telephone number for a British 'tell-all' tabloid journalist is all Gabriel has to start with.

Gabriel reminds me of the only good line in Godfather III, where Don Corleone says "everytime I try to leave they pull me back in." And like that Gabriel wants to be left alone to do the restoration work of his favorite Bellinis in his favorite city, Venice. He wants so much to be left alone that he refuses to talk to his coworkers and works behind a shroud high above the damp church floor, on a scaffold. But Shamron the aging predator knows where to find him and sends him to Munich "where it all started" we are reminded. The reference is not to the book nor teaching of Bennie Stern but to Chancellor Hitler.

The plotting is riveting; the action taut. A great, great thriller, one of Silva's best. Couldn't put it down. 5 stars. Larry Scantlebury.

The shadowy role of the Vatican in the Holocaust has long been a subject of controversy. Here, Daniel Silva takes the issue head on, spinning a fictional yet wholly believable indictment of the Church's complicity with the Nazis, if not as a direct participant, at least in looking the other way while atrocities were committed across Eastern Europe.

Back is Gabriel Allon, the sometime art restorer and full time assassin of the Israeli Mossad. Allon's current assignment - restoration of the Bellini altarpiece at Venice's San Zaccaria Cathedral - is interrupted to investigate and avenge the murder of longtime friend and Mossad colleague Benjamin Stern. Stern, it turns out, was deep into research that uncovers incriminating evidence of Vatican activity during the Holocaust and in aiding the escape to South America of Nazi war criminals. As always, Silva's Allon is a compelling lead character, while the relevant history is well researched and credible. The plot is thick with conspiracy and secret organizations, similar in that regard to "DaVinci Code". And like "DaVinci", the premise is not complementary of the Roman Catholic Church. Silva's tale unapologetically builds a case that condemns Pope Pius XII for Nazi sympathies during the war, while criticizing his successors for refusing repeated requests to unlock secret Vatican documents regarding the Church's dealings during WWII. While the thinly velied implications of subject matter may offend some, most should find "The Confessor" a suspenseful and entertaining illumination of a not particularly proud period of western civilization.