Silva continues to turn out  a book a year, this one being his 29th. All but three feature Gabriel Allon, the Israeli spy, assassin, and expert art restorer as the main character, and though reading these books is akin to dining for several days exclusively on cotton candy , I can’t help myself and eagerly plunged into this year’s offering.

In it, Allon is contacted by one of England’s richest men, Edward Knight when his wife goes missing while on a girl’s weekend in Ibiza.  Her car is found at the bottom of a ravine and a single sandal turns up on a beach, but otherwise, she’s vanished into thin air.  A week later, a ransom of $1B is demanded, and Knight turns to Allon to recover his wife at any cost.

The tale unwinds through Austria, Switzerland, and England and ends up involving some of Allon’s best friends—the Danish pickpocket and computer hacker, Ingrid; the Cornwall-Devon detective inspector, Timothy Peel; his art gallery owning former CIA operative Sara Bancroft—as well as an entire cast of spymasters from England to Denmark to Holland.  They are all needed to thwart Russia’s efforts to undermine NATO and dominate Ukraine. Huh?

As usual, the plot is a bit of stretch, but the pace of the writing and the action are as furious and well done as always keeping my nose in the book for enough time to finish this 400 pager in a weekend.  I particuarly enjoy Silva’s barbs directed at our Narcissist-in-Chief, right up to date with the current craziness in DC.

Silva’s books are unlikely to be read in 100 years, but in the meantime, they are great fun and this one is among his best.