Daniel Silva is among the best spy novelists around these days. His reading and discussion of his latest title, The Secret Servant, at Murder by the Book, will show you why. Intense and electrifying, Secret Servant follows Gabriel Allon, a sometime officer of Israeli intelligence who stumbles onto a plot to kidnap an American ambassadorยs daughter. Speeding off to thwart the plan, Allon arrives just in time to see the young woman being pushed into a van, and the chase begins. Sure that she will be killed by the Muslim extremists holding her, Allon will follow them through England, Germany and the ends of Denmark trying to save her, always, it seems, arriving just a little too late. Traipsing through CIA, MI-5 and NSA territory without bothering to ask permission doesnยt make Allon very popular with the law enforcement set, and when he kidnaps the wife and son of one of the extremists as a bargaining chip, even his own Israeli cohorts balk. Secret Servant is a straight chase-and-shoot novel on one level, but it also thoughtfully examines todayยs war on terrorism, all the players and the ethical quicksand they stand on. A former UPI news reporter stationed in the Middle East, Silva has firsthand knowledge of the region and the possibility that story lines like his may not remain fiction for much longer.
This article appears in Jul 26 – Aug 1, 2007.