The Rembrandt Affair (Gabriel Allon) [Kindle Edition]

Daniel Silva (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Silva's spy, assassin, and art-restoring protagonist, Gabriel Allon, returns in a fresh--and thrilling--international adventure. When an art restorer friend is killed and the Rembrandt painting he was working on stolen, Allon is lured out of a self-imposed retirement to investigate the crime. As the complex plot flips and twists from one country to the next, Phil Gigante keeps the plot moving forward with a calm, thoughtful reading that coils around the reader. His characters are perfectly drawn; the suspense, taut; and each individual is rendered distinctly: his reading of a Holocaust survivor's remembrance of being a little girl hiding from the Nazis is particularly effective and moving. A Putnam hardcover. (Aug.)
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Product Description

When an art restorer is murdered and a portrait by Rembrandt is stolen, Gabriel Allon is pulled into a race across the globe against a group of powerful men who will do anything to keep the truth about the painting hidden...

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 515 KB
• Print Length: 498 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0451233999
• Publisher: Signet (July 5, 2011)
• Sold by: Penguin Publishing
• Language: English
• ASIN: B003QMLBOS
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (252 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,997 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

He has been called his generation's finest writer of international intrigue and one of the greatest American spy novelists ever. Compelling, passionate, haunting, brilliant: these are the words that have been used to describe the work of #1 New York Times-bestselling author Daniel Silva.

Silva burst onto the scene in 1997 with his electrifying bestselling debut, The Unlikely Spy, a novel of love and deception set around the Allied invasion of France in World War II. His second and third novels, The Mark of the Assassin and The Marching Season, were also instant New York Times bestsellers and starred two of Silva's most memorable characters: CIA officer Michael Osbourne and international hit man Jean-Paul Delaroche. But it was Silva's fourth novel, The Kill Artist, which would alter the course of his career. The novel featured a character described as one of the most memorable and compelling in contemporary fiction, the art restorer and sometime Israeli secret agent Gabriel Allon, and though Silva did not realize it at the time, Gabriel's adventures had only just begun. Gabriel Allon appears in Silva's next nine novels, each one more successful than the last: The English Assassin, The Confessor, A Death in Vienna, and Prince of Fire, The Messenger, The Secret Servant, Moscow Rules, and The Defector. Silva's forthcoming novel, The Rembrandt Affair, will be published on July 20, 2010.

Silva knew from a very early age that he wanted to become a writer, but his first profession would be journalism. Born in Michigan, raised and educated in California, he was pursuing a master's degree in international relations when he received a temporary job offer from United Press International to help cover the 1984 Democratic National Convention in San Francisco. Later that year Silva abandoned his studies and joined UPI fulltime, working first in San Francisco, then on the foreign desk in Washington, and finally as Middle East correspondent in Cairo and the Persian Gulf. In 1987, while covering the Iran-Iraq war, he met NBC Today National Correspondent Jamie Gangel and they were married later that year. Silva returned to Washington and went to work for CNN and became Executive Producer of its talk show unit including shows like Crossfire, Capital Gang and Reliable Sources.

In 1995 he confessed to Jamie that his true ambition was to be a novelist. With her support and encouragement he secretly began work on the manuscript that would eventually become the instant bestseller The Unlikely Spy. He left CNN in 1997 after the book's successful publication and began writing full time. Since then all of Silva's books have been New York Times and international bestsellers. His books have been translated in to more than 25 languages and are published around the world. Silva continues to reside in Washington with his wife and teenage twins Lily and Nicholas. When not writing he can usually be found roaming the stacks of the Georgetown University library, where he does much of the research for his books. He is currently at work on a new Gabriel Allon novel and warmly thanks all those friends and loyal readers who have helped to make the series such an amazing success.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

232 of 246 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Silva's at the top of his game--and that's saying something, July 20, 2010

By 

Marcus Sakey "Bestselling Novelist" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Rembrandt Affair (Gabriel Allon) (Kindle Edition)

Too few of today's espionage novelists deliver well-drawn characters, rich prose, or depth of philosophical thought. Daniel Silva, like John le Carre or Alan Furst, is an exception to that rule.

The plot follows the search for a lost Rembrandt portrait, a masterpiece with a legacy of bloodshed. But what makes the book special is that Silva uses this straightforward device as a springboard to explore issues ranging from the value of art--both fiscal and emotional--to international financial scams to global politics, all without ever letting the tension lag. The prose is exceptional, the research impeccable, and the characters compelling.

If you like your thrillers relentless and smart, this is one for you.

82 of 85 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply outstanding!, July 21, 2010

By 

Patrick J Murin - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Rembrandt Affair (Gabriel Allon) (Hardcover)

I am a long-time fan of this series; the quality of Mr. Silva's writing has reached a very high level, and remains there with The Rembrandt Affair. There's a little less action than in some of the recent books, but the read is still quick and spell-binding. I fear that the series will be winding down soon, but I hope it continues for at least another ten books, especially if the quality remains as high as exemplified by The Rembrandt Affair.

Several commenters have given the book a single star rating for issues they have with the pricing of the Kindle edition. I don't think that is fair, since the quality of the writing is so extraordinary. I think the reading value of this book justifies the price. Incidentally, I bought the hardback edition, but I think the Kindle verison is fairly priced too. I use the ratings a great deal, but I use them to judge the quality of the product; pricing you can always evaluate yourself, but that shouldn't be a factor in the rating of the product quality.

178 of 195 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars work of art/art of work, July 20, 2010

By 

Julia M. Walker (NY Finger Lakes) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Rembrandt Affair (Gabriel Allon) (Hardcover)

Whew. I remember this guy, Daniel Silva. He wrote the most marvelous thrillers -- action plus ideology, art, politics, a strong sense of place, memorable minor characters. Then he took a sabbatical that lasted 3 novels. Three novels in which the hero became a self-involved action figure.

But now he's back. And Gabriel Allon is back in Cornwall, although not yet out to sea or in the studio. He's tracking again, but tracking down a missing Rembrandt, a portrait of the artist's mistress, a never-displayed lost treasure. Julian Isherwood is much in evidence and the watching little boy of the early novels, Peel, is now a young man and back in the picture. The coast is described in general, if not in loving particular, and it looks like Gabriel is taking on an investigation that is personally significant, but not significantly personal.

While Silva -- a former reporter -- is always good at investing his plots with current issues, this meditation on the economics of art in a time of financial distress is particularly shrewd. The gap between rich and poor is exacerbated by those private collectors who buy paintings stolen from museums, only to hang them on the walls of their private galleries. So much more than monetary value is the world's loss to the Museum of the Missing.

Giving his reader non-stop-thrill-ride-nail-biting-OMG action has never been a problem for Silva. (The only problem has been giving so much of it that there's no room for anything else.) Here the background and subject matter of the painting itself are gracefully woven into the fabric of the story so that the reader learns and thinks while also being riveted.

The plot is more like the early books than the last 3: there's more thinking and less blood. Silva's research is both impressive and heart-breaking. He introduces a minor character in Paris who is an activist in post-Holocaust politics and with her he introduced me to the term "memory militant."

In addition to being an outstanding writer, Silva is himself a dedicated memory militant who honors all aspects of that monumental subject.