Silva has written 28 novels featuring the world class art restorer who also happens to be an Israeli spymaster and assassin, Gabriel Allon.  This, the fourth book in the series, is a real page turner featuring, of all things, a newly elected Pope.

While deep in the restoration of a Bernini altarpiece in Venice, Allon is approached by his former boss, the legendary Ari Shamron who asks him to investigate the murder of an undercover Israeli agent, Professor Benjamin Stern in Munich.  Stern had been working on a book about the Vatican and Pius XII’s actions during WWII and the Holocaust, and his research had evidently turned up something of great concern to some party.  As Allon digs further into the murder and the book, bodies pile up and the tension rises to a fevered pitch when a new Pope is elected, one who is committed to opening the archives and revealing the Vatican’s actions.  A surprise ending caps a real page turning trip which at 470 pages, went by surprisingly quickly.

Allon isn’t for everyone, especially during this time of Israel’s war in Gaza, but if you can manage the nationalistic drumbeats, he’s a great character involved in fascinating plots with surprising endings.  Highly recommended.