Gabriel Allon hasn't been back to Vienna since his wife and child died there in a terrorist bombing. But when his mentor in the Israeli intelligence agency dispatches him to the Austrian capitol to investigate a murderous explosion at the Wartime Claims and Inquiry Office, his presence alerts the attention of police officials who have reasons to stand in the way of his investigation. When a concentration camp survivor is killed who could link the father of Austria's next chancellor to Nazi atrocities and an ongoing coverup by the Catholic Church, Allon discovers another connection to the conspiracy, this one closer to his own past than he could ever have imagined. This is the third of Silva's thrillers featuring Allon, the art restorer who's also a spy (The Confessor and The English Assassin are the first two). In an endnote, the author calls them a "completed cycle dealing with the unfinished business of the Holocaust." Allon is such a compelling hero that one hopes Silva, a skilled craftsman and a terrific story-teller, will bring him back in another series. --Jane Adams


From Publishers Weekly
Silva completes his cycle of three interconnected novels (The English Assassin; The Confessor) dealing with "the unfinished business of the Holocaust" with this superbly crafted narrative of espionage and foreign intrigue. During the later stages of WWII, Sturmbannführer Erich Radek's job was to erase all evidence of the Holocaust. Radek, now known as Ludwig Vogel, is chairman of the Danube Valley Trade and Investment Corporation and lives quietly in Vienna. A bombing at the Austrian Wartime Claims and Inquiries office leaves chief investigator Eli Lavon near death. Undercover Mossad agent Gabriel Allon, protagonist of the two previous novels, is ordered by Israeli spymaster Ari Shamron to ferret out the perpetrator. Allon is reluctant-he's working as an art restorer on one of Bellini's great altarpieces in Venice-but Eli is an old friend from the secret service, and duty calls. The case becomes personal when Allon, reading his mother's account of her time in the camps "I will not tell all the things I saw. I cannot. I owe this much to the dead" discovers that not only was Radek a sadistic monster, his mother was very nearly murdered by him. The chase is long and complex as agents from a number of international spy groups circle and harass Allon as he hunts down the infamous and still deadly Radek. Those seeking cheap thrills should look elsewhere. Action and suspense abound, but this is serious fiction with a serious purpose. Silva keeps the pressure on the reader as well as his characters as there are important lessons to be learned and vital history to be remembered. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.


From AudioFile
A riveting account picks up the passionate search by art restorer/Mossad agent Gabriel Allon for a perpetrator of unspeakable horrors in the Nazi death camps. Plot twists, hairbreadth escapes, and moments of terror abound. In this third and final book in a trilogy (THE CONFESSOR, THE ENGLISH ASSASSIN), Allon's search becomes highly personal as it is intricately interwoven with a love story. Silva's characters are well served by narrator Tony Goldwyn, who deftly delivers various foreign accents, transcending one narrative voice. An especially attractive package is an added bonus. L.C. © AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Silva writes le Carre-style spy novels in which the action, despite careening across cities and continents, retains knife-edge-sharp suspense, as one man confronts a host of ingenious enemies. He brings something new to the formula, too, a hero whose day job is his real passion, not merely a cover for his spy self. Silva's hero, Gabriel Allon, is a restorer of paintings and frescoes (a large part of the fascination of this series is the care Silva takes to let the reader in on the painstaking art of restoration). Allon is also a reluctant member of Israeli intelligence, his ties to that world based on bonds of shared tragedy with his fellow spies. This time out, Allon is called to leave his restoration of a Bellini altarpiece in Venice when an old friend and contact--head of the Wartime Claims and Inquiries office--dies in an al-Qaeda-related bombing in Vienna. Allon's search in the Austrian city (rendered in suitably sinister office blocks and cafes that suggest the classic film noir The Third Man) leads him to a suspected Nazi war criminal and down a path of tortuous memories. Scrupulously avoiding the whiplash that comes from too much action in too many places in too short a time (an endemic condition in lesser spy novels), this finely wrought thriller reads like an exquisitely suspenseful chess game. Connie Fletcher
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Publishers Weekly, starred review, January 12, 2004
Action and suspense abound, but this is serious fiction with a serious purpose.


Library Journal, January 2004
Silva has crafted an exciting and complex novel. Recommended for all fiction collections.


New York Daily News, February 29, 2004
...gripping.... The grim, fateful plotting resembles the early work of John le Carre...


Book Description
The sins of the past reverberate into the present, in an extraordinary novel by the new master of international suspense.

It was an ordinary-looking photograph. Just the portrait of a man. But the very sight of it chilled Allon to the bone.

Art restorer and sometime spy Gabriel Allon is sent to Vienna to authenticate a painting, but the real object of his search becomes something else entirely: to find out the truth about the photograph that has turned his world upside down. It is the face of the unnamed man who brutalized his mother in the last days of World War II, during the Death March from Auschwitz. But is it really the same one? If so, who is he? How did he escape punishment? Where is he now?

Fueled by an intensity he has not felt in years, Allon cautiously begins to investigate; but with each layer that is stripped away, the greater the evil that is revealed, a web stretching across sixty years and thousands of lives. Soon, the quest for one monster becomes the quest for many. And the monsters are stirring...

Rich with sharply etched characters and prose, and a plot of astonishing intricacy, this is an uncommonly intelligent thriller by one of our very best writers.


Download Description
"The sins of the past reverberate into the present, in an extraordinary novel by the new master of international suspense. Art restorer and sometime spy Gabriel Allon is sent to Vienna to authenticate a painting, but the real object of his search becomes something else entirely: to find out the truth about the photograph that has turned his world upside down. It is the face of the unnamed man who brutalized his mother in the last days of World War II, during the Death March from Auschwitz. But is it really the same one? If so, who is he? How did he escape punishment? Where is he now? Fueled by an intensity he has not felt in years, Allon cautiously begins to investigate; but with each layer that is stripped away, the greater the evil that is revealed, a web stretching across sixty years and thousands of lives. Soon, the quest for one monster becomes the quest for many. And the monsters are stirring... Rich with sharply etched characters and prose, and a plot of astonishing intricacy, this is an uncommonly intelligent thriller by one of our very best writers."

FROM OUR EDITORS

The Barnes & Noble Review
This is the third entry in Silva's espionage series (following The English Assassin and The Confessor) focused on the continuing repercussions of the Holocaust in the art world, the religious sphere, and the political arena. Gabriel Allon, a restorer of paintings and frescoes, is also an Israeli agent sent to Vienna to investigate a bombing at the Austrian Wartime Claims and Inquiries office. The case takes a bizarre personal twist when Allon learns that his mother, a concentration camp survivor, faced the sadistic Erich Radek, a notorious Nazi believed to be the perpetrator of the bombing. Newly fueled by vengeance, Allon sets off on his mission, as various assassins and spies seek to aid or hinder his purpose.

The characters in Death in Vienna are either covering up evils from the past or are motivated by revenge to throw themselves full force into the deadly game. In an author's note, Silva informs us that this novel closes his cycle of books dealing with the Holocaust. We can only hope that he returns soon with more rapid-fire, high-style thrillers.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"Art restorer and sometime spy Gabriel Allon is sent to Vienna to discover the truth behind a bombing that killed an old friend, but while there he encounters something that turns his world upside down. It is a face - a face that feels hauntingly familiar, a face that chills him to the bone and sends him on an urgent hunt for more: a name, a history, a connection." Each fact he uncovers, however, only leads to more questions; each layer he strips away reveals more layers beneath. Finally, a picture begins to emerge, but one more terrible than he could have imagined, a portrait of evil stretching across sixty years and thousands of lives and into his own personal nightmares. Soon the quest for one monster becomes the quest for many. And the monsters are stirring.

FROM THE CRITICS

The Washington Post

Given a bit of research, only a very clumsy novelist could not make gripping fiction out of Nazi inhumanity, and Silva is a skillful novelist who does justice to the often heartbreaking material without exploiting it. He has performed a service with his three post-Holocaust novels, but to continue mining that vein might well have limited his growth as a writer. Silva doesn't say whether he will bring back Gabriel Allon, but if he does I hope he will use him to explore the evils of today's world, which, if not always as clear-cut as those of the Holocaust, are no less real. — Patrick Anderson

New York Daily News

...gripping.... The grim, fateful plotting resembles the early work of John le Carre...

Publishers Weekly

Silva completes his cycle of three interconnected novels (The English Assassin; The Confessor) dealing with "the unfinished business of the Holocaust" with this superbly crafted narrative of espionage and foreign intrigue. During the later stages of WWII, Sturmbannfuhrer Erich Radek's job was to erase all evidence of the Holocaust. Radek, now known as Ludwig Vogel, is chairman of the Danube Valley Trade and Investment Corporation and lives quietly in Vienna. A bombing at the Austrian Wartime Claims and Inquiries office leaves chief investigator Eli Lavon near death. Undercover Mossad agent Gabriel Allon, protagonist of the two previous novels, is ordered by Israeli spymaster Ari Shamron to ferret out the perpetrator. Allon is reluctant-he's working as an art restorer on one of Bellini's great altarpieces in Venice-but Eli is an old friend from the secret service, and duty calls. The case becomes personal when Allon, reading his mother's account of her time in the camps-"I will not tell all the things I saw. I cannot. I owe this much to the dead"-discovers that not only was Radek a sadistic monster, his mother was very nearly murdered by him. The chase is long and complex as agents from a number of international spy groups circle and harass Allon as he hunts down the infamous and still deadly Radek. Those seeking cheap thrills should look elsewhere. Action and suspense abound, but this is serious fiction with a serious purpose. Silva keeps the pressure on the reader as well as his characters as there are important lessons to be learned and vital history to be remembered. Author tour. (Mar.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

This is Silva's seventh novel and the concluding volume in a trilogy featuring Gabriel Allon, an aging, lonely, and reluctant Israeli assassin and art restorer. In his latest case, an Israeli war claims office in Vienna has been bombed, innocent people are dead, and a connection is suspected between neo-Nazis and an upcoming Austrian election. While investigating the bombing, Allon finds an intensely personal link between a man who may or may not be a long-hidden Nazi war criminal and his own devastated family (Allon's mother survived the Holocaust). Along with discovering the truth behind the bombing, Allon has to confront cover-ups by the CIA and the Vatican and attempts on his own life, then deal with both an unrepentant Austrian government and stonewalling Swiss banks. As usual, Silva has crafted an exciting and complex novel. Recommended for all fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/03.]-Robert Conroy, Warren, MI Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews