“House of Spies”
“House of Spies”, Daniel Silva’s latest book of the escapades of his hero, Gabriel Allon, is firmly ensconced in the best seller lists. It is Allon’s 20th outing. It is with mixed feelings that the reader’s attention is directed to the Author’s Note. On the one hand, it is a comforting peek into Silva’s absolute devotion to research, to ‘getting it right’. On the other hand, it is an incisive analysis of the workings of terrorists in these days, which is anything but comforting.
After years of dogged resistance, Allon (oak tree in Hebrew) has finally taken the job of chief of the Israeli secret service. He immediately turns the bureaucracy topsyturvy. One example is that the man he replaced has an office across the hall. Unheard of in the annals of bureaucracy. Another example is that he gathers unto himself his elite team of operatives that has carried out some of the most storied operations of the service.
For all of them, the top spot on the to-do list is occupied by one Saladin, the reigning threat to the peace and safety of the world, and they all feel that something big is coming. But the something big was not the split-second timed attacks on three densely packed theaters on the affluent West End of London.
Silva spends a large number of pages introducing a new character. He is Christopher Heller, highly trained in the tradecraft of the spy, speaks several languages fluently, and, of course, is an expert at the art of killing.
Like his hero, Silva is very careful to give adequate pages to each part of his plan before it goes operational. While consulting with his opposite number in Paris, Allon is caught in a van bombing which takes out most of the French secret service building, and very nearly takes out Allon himself.
The illusive, highly intelligent Saladin strikes in Antwerp, Belgium, with sixtynine dead and hundreds wounded. Allon’s team watches Saladin’s strikes closely and concludes that he must have a very reliable funding source. In a short time, they settle on Jean Luc Martel, a fabulously rich businessman whose main income, the team learns, is from drugs.
As in many previous operations, the team needs someone on the inside. They find a perfect one in Olivia Watson, owner of a very exclusive art gallery in Saint Tropez, on the French Riviera, playground of the rich and famous. Ms. Watson is the live-in companion od Martel. In order to penetrate this high rolling culture, Allon must have millions in funding. It is a safe bet that the way in which he comes by this degree of funding will be amusing to most readers. By the use of kidnapping and various other methods of skullduggery, the team gets much closer to Martel. Also, and by the bye, the methods of interrogation of the kidnapped will probably go down hard with some readers.
Allon and the chiefs of French and British secret services are summoned to Washington to meet with the new director of the CIA. He is exmilitary, big and bluff and commanding, and who immediately tries to take over the leadership of the hunt for Saladin. How that meeting comes out will likely not be a complete surprise to most followers of Silva and Allon.
After the D.C. meeting, all of the Israeli secret service was mobilized, all now convinced they were up against a highly intelligent ideologue, totally unfeeling to death by terrorism and that the scale of logistical readiness was enormous.
Among the items of logistics was the acquisition in Morocco’s famed Casablanca (cue Sam playing the piano for Ilsa, “As Time Goes By”). It is haunted by demons. Many names are suggested for the place until one name is settled, House of Spies. Nice tie-in.
All the elaborate preparations have borne fruit, and the big finale has been set up in the deserts of Morocco.
Book review ethics forbid further hints and allusions. The reader will have the pleasure of seeing Silva’s meticulous build-up come to a head. But, a suggestion, put thick tape over all your fingernails before you start the last hundred pages.
Malcolm Nelson is a former systems analyst and a retired teacher. Email him at scribbler9@ windstream.net.