The Heist, Daniel Silva, 2014

 Once again, Gabriel Allon is disturbed while restoring a world class painting in Venice and sent into the midst of an international intrigue featuring brutal killing and The Office (Israel’s intelligence service).  This time it’s a British double agent turned art thief who is tortured and murdered in his villa on Lake Como.  By the time, Allon sorts this all out he has stolen and then returned Van Gogh’s The Sunflowers, stolen and then returned $8.2 billion from the Syrian dictator, lost and then recovered a Syrian woman bank account manager living in Linz, Germany (Hitler’s favorite  home town), etc etc.  You get the idea.  Great action writing but Silva never draws his characters with enough depth so that you really care what happens to them.  Bottom line—light fare but enjoyable fluff.