Daniel Silva’s latest spy thriller, A Death in Cornwall, is every bit as good as his last ones. In this outing, Gabriel Allon, Israel’s semi-retired spy chief and part-time art restorer, is asked to help solve the murder of a well-known art authenticator. The trail leads out of the art world and into the world of billionaire oligarchs who hide their wealth in layer after layer of foreign shell companies and often use the acquisition and trading of valuable paintings as a part of their tax evasion schemes.
I am still in awe of how
expertly Silva knits his plots and brilliant humor together as Allon and
Ingrid, his kleptomaniacal computer guru associate, weave their way through all
of Europe including London, Cornwall, Paris, Marseille, Corsica, and Venice at
breakneck speed. Silva seems to know in acute detail every local wine and food
preference as well as every road turn and railway and flight schedule to get
you to the next destination. I give you one example. As the violent climax
nears, one of the attacking duo asks the other what is in the rucksack he is
carrying. The answer is “night-vision field glasses, two Glock pistols,
ammunition, a couple of secure phones, and a box of McVities.” The sidekick
asks, “Dark chocolate?” And the answer is “Of course!” To which the reply is “I’d kill for one.” Only
immaculate research, an eye for word play, and vast experience can come up with
that exchange.
Interspersed with the
action is the main theme, which is as up-to-the present as today’s evening
news. It is stated baldly by the cashiered former MI5 villain Robertson when he
tells Allon, “Your implacable sense of right and wrong is admirable, but I’m
afraid it’s rather out of fashion at the moment. The truth is there is no right
and wrong any longer. There is only power and money.”
I give it a full-throated
5 out of 5 for its genre.
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