The New Girl audiobook

This is somewhere between a 4- and 5-star book for me, but since Silva has proven that, for the 19th time, he's my favorite author, I'm going with 5.The New Girl is vintage Silva: rapid-fire pacing, shifting locations, international intrigue, clearly defined characters, and crisp dialogue. I love everything about his writing and construction, and think Gabriel Allon is one of the best (if not THE best) protagonists out there. I relate to Allon in a way that I don't a Jack Reacher (Lee Chid) or a Cotton Malone (Steve Berry), probably because of Allon's affiliation with the Middle East and Silva's willingness to tackle tough questions that touch on religion and religious differences. And the author manages to describe settings in a way that makes me feel as if I'm there, enhancing the story while not distracting from it.My only negative comment about The New Girl is that Allon is a little wooden. Although his inner thoughts and motivations are alluded to at times, I didn't see him develop as a character in this book. I realize that after 19 books it's hard to tease out new facets of a protagonist, and I'm confident that Silva will find a way to do this.(Addition to this review after thinking about it: Allon's stiffness may be a result of his now being head of Mossad, instead of a spy/assassin. In The Other Woman, the previous book and first with Allon as Mossad head, I commented on the same thing. Perhaps Silva is having a hard time depicting Allon as a more passive figure, instead of a very active one? Just thinking . . .)Even with my take on Allon being stilted, The New Girl is well worth the read. In my opinion Silva is the best thing going in thriller, and he's a master of international stories. I can't wait to order the book that should release next summer.Very highly recommended.

Why can’t I read slower?Whenever I’m about to start reading the newest Gabriel Allon book from Daniel Silva, I always tell myself to read it slowly. Let the enjoyment that will overcome me when reading it last a little longer. Yep, I tell myself that every time. And every time I am able to go slowly at first but the more I read, the more involved I become with Gabriel and Ciara and Keller and Mikhail and Eli and Ari and Seymour with his wife’s earnest yet horrendous cooking. So the faster I read. I can’t help myself. I don’t have the words to describe how stupendously good this book is and how stupendously great a writer Daniel Silva is. So again, I read it too fast. So again I must wait another 51 1/2 weeks till the next Gabriel Allon book is released.

Silva consistently writes at a high, professional level and this thriller hits the mark again.Because the author is willing to dig, research, plot, and then engage on the subject of complex global politics, readers will come away satisfied at having learned as well as having been entertained.Moreover, Silva keeps the series fresh with new characters in addition to familiar ones.The minor points---I'm so weary (editors? publishers?) of "Girl" in every new book title. It's already such an old thing. Perhaps eventually it will pass on like other cliched fads. Also, there was far more going on with the activist & journalist on whom Omar Nawwaf is modeled than Silva suggests. However, he rightly points out practicing journalists in far too many countries-- in addition to Saudi Arabia--are silenced, arrested, or even executed.But these are indeed minor points. The New Girl is a truly excellent novel, highly recommended to all thriller, espionage, and suspense readers.

This is my second-ever Daniel Silva book and I'm glad I found him. I love a good spy thriller—they're perfect poolside reading—and this one has much to recommend itself: tight pacing, an intriguing setting (in the international art world), characters exchanging F. Scott Fitzgerald lines over dinner. I particularly appreciated how Silva took his inspiration from all-too-real international events: this time, the 2018 murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, and the involvement of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. In this book, Silva asks what if?, imagining how events might play out in the real Middle East. Don't miss the author's note at the end.

Silva's Gabriel Allon series remains one of the best as Silva's understanding of Middle Eastern politics shines: hatred between the two Muslim sects, between the hardliners and reformists, and the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. A young girl is kidnapped from a private school in Switzerland, and the ransom demand is that the crown prince of Saud Arabia (Khalid bin Mohammed) abdicate his claim to the throne. As a known reformer, KBM has a legion of enemies, and not knowing whom he can trust, he reaches out to the head of the Office, Gabriel Allon via Sarah Bancroft, now a curator at MoMA in NY, who has appeared in a number of prior novels. Gabriel agrees to help because he thinks KBM is better than the alternatives and because Gabriel lost a child violently too. Things go badly wrong, and Gabriel, his trusted team (Mikhail Abramov, Christopher Keller, Eli Lavon), and his British allies embark on a clever plan to unveil and embarrass the hidden manipulators. Silva blends in fictionalized versions of actual recent events, such as the killing of Jamal Khashoggi in a foreign embassy and the use of plutonium as a means of assassination. Gabriel's painting is a nice touch. 4.5 stars, rounded down, probably unfairly.

I am a huge fan of Daniel Silva and can say this is one of his best! Page turner, politically relevant, such a great story.

19th in the Gabriel Allon series, author Daniel Silva brings a fictional slant on recent events surrounding the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, moving his country away from the strict religious dogma of Wahibism to a more secular regime, including allowing women to drive, and the assassination of a prominent Saudi journalist. When the (fictitious) Crown Prince’s daughter is abducted from a private school in Geneva: held not for ransom but to force the Crown Prince to abdicate, he calls in a reluctant Gabriel Allon, head of the Israeli security service, to help secure her release. With the west prefering the erratic Crown Prince to the alternative, pro-Russia, half-brother of the King, he agrees, hoping to use the connection as leverage in the future. Throw in Russian interference in the ascendency to the crown, a daughter of Kim Philby exposed as a MI6 mole, and a Russian assassin at large in England killing off those critical of Putin and you have the makings of a first class thriller.As always, there is an art connection: Gabriel as a restorer of old masters, and resurrecting a character from earlier books, American Sarah Bancroft, graduate of the Courtaulds Institute and Harvard, curator of the Museum of Modern Art’s collection of Modern and Impressionist works by the late Nadia al-Bakari, daughter of Saudi investor Zizi al-Bakari. Notably she is former CIA, and ex-fiancé of Russian-born Mikhail Abramov – hatchet man for “the Office”. In an inspired pairing, former Sayeret Matkal commando, Mikhail, bookends with former SAS Christopher Keller across Europe in search of the kidnappers.And yet, this one seemed like an old mattress, firm and reliable; soft in the middle and lumpy in parts. The soft part: Sarah Bancroft. I admit not to have read the earlier books in the series in which she featured, and came away bemused as why the CIA recruited her, or why they would want her back. Why she is no longer engaged to Mikhail is more straightforward: his loyalty is to Israel (and Gabriel, who Sarah also had the hots for) when her loyalty is to herself. On the plus side, I learned more in a few simple pages about the relationship between the al-Saud’s and Wahibism and enjoyed the usual surveillance tradecraft, where Sarah’s dismal performance endangers them all. One obvious flaw (view spoiler)[ - if the radiation dose was so lethal, why was the Crown Prince and the flight crew on board the private aircraft unaffected? (hide spoiler)]Verdict: a satisfying read, but not his best.

Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series is addictive. As usual, THE NEW GIRL is loosely based on recent events and moves into what could happen later on.While Allon is now older than 65 and heads Mossad, he still finds himself in the center of action. In THE NEW GIRL, he gets pulled in by the future king of Saudi Arabia, Prince Khalid, when Khalid’s twelve-year-old daughter, his only child, is kidnaped in Switzerland. Allon had great expectations for Khalid to modernize Saudi Arabia For example, women gained more rights. But then Khalid began getting rid of his opponents, sometimes by imprisonment, sometimes by murder, and appropriating their money and property. When a Saudi ex-pat journalist and dissident was lured to the Istanbul Saudi consulate and brutally murdered, Allon gave up on the Khalid. But he found he could not refuse to help him try to locate his daughter and save her life.Allon forms a team of agents with whom he has previously worked and also has to work with intelligence agencies of other countries. It’s no surprise that they are able to locate her after a lot of work. After that, the story continues to expand. Changes in the Saudi government and society continue, some going forward, some backward. Russia becomes a prime player as it tries to gain influence in the Middle East and assume America’s position as world leader.Daniel Silva explains how Wahhabism became the dominate religion in a new country, Saudi Arabia, in the 1700s when Mohamed Abdul Wahhab believed that Moslems had lost their traditional beliefs and practices and adopted the ways of other nations. By the second decade in the twenty first century, the descendants of the founders of Saudi Arabia had become very wealthy. They continued to reap millions of dollars based on their relationship and splurged on their own over-the-top desires. Khalid realized that with the declining use of oil, the country would revert to its days as a desert occupied by warring nomads.The future king knew that this country’s wealth was largely a mirage; the family had squandered a mountain of money on palaces and trinkets; that in 20 years, when the transformation from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy was complete, the oil beneath Saudi Arabia would be as worthless as the sand that covered it. Extremists felt that the US was losing its influence and the future lie in Russia and Eurasia, especially since Russia was sowing discord where ever it could.Tidbit: While like the Jews, the Palestinians have been scattered, they have never been the target of an organized campaign of physical annihilation like the Shoah. That’s why the Jewish people must have a state of their own since they can not depend on anyone else to protect them. THE NEW GIRL keeps moving. When one problem is resolved, another pops up. There are a lot of killings, which are not detailed. There are also too many unnecessarily short chapters. References are made to previous books in the series but it is not necessary to have read them first. The book is well written and edited. As always, I’m looking forward to next year’s story.

Read the full review at my site Digital AmritIntroductionThe New Girl is 19th book in the Gabriel Allon series, by Daniel Silva. In case you are new to it, Gabriel Allon (the protagonist) is an Israeli assassin who also happens to be one of the best artists/restorers in the world. During the course of the series, he suffers from heart break, finds new love and matches wits with the 'enemy' of the month. This series is definitely written with the Western audience in mind though Daniel Silva tries to portray at least some of the antagonists as human beings in their own right - be it Palestinians, The Iranians, The Saudis or the rest of the Arab world as well as Russians. If there is one country that is blasted throughout, it is the Swiss. There is a bit of a formula that these books follow. Somebody usually approaches Allon with a problem, he gets a team together, they encounter setbacks, then more effort is put in, a minor deus ex machine occurs and most of the situation is resolved. The New Girl follows this formula to the T. Read the full review at my site Digital Amrit

I came late to the Daniel Silva books and really loved The Widow and The Other Woman. These two books are the standard I hold all of his other books (future books to be read). I did not like this book to start out. There was too much back story and setting the plot that slowed the forward motion. After Silva got all of that out of the way he settled into his great story telling. I'm a third-close point of view or first person kind of reader, his third distant point of view, at times barely holds me in the story. Too much telling and not enough showing of the scene. Also not enough emotion is shown in the characters.The story arc was off for me as well. I don't like to give away plot points but the big build up for the kidnap made me believe the kidnap was going to be the main focus of the story. When that part of the ended and the real story arc revealed I did feel a little cheated.Don't get me wrong I liked this story a great and I will buy the hardcover of his next one as soon as it comes available. I do recommend this book.David Putnam author of the Bruno Johnson series.

In the interest of full disclosure, this series (more specifically, art restorer and accomplished Israeli spy Gabriel Allon) has held the No. 1 spot on my Top 10 "heroes" list for quite a few years now. This is his 19th book; and I assure you he's in no danger of losing that lofty perch. The story is intricately woven with enough suspense to make me hold my breath here and there and the writing is, as always, exemplary. Add in the appearance of several familiar characters from previous books and the result is, well, another winner in my book.Despite the singular title, there are two characters here who are bestowed with that moniker; the first is a young lady who has been enrolled in a fancy private school in Switzerland (you'll have to read the book to learn the identity of the other one). It is this young lady, though, who kicks off the story with an unhappy event: She's been kidnapped. Conventional wisdom says it's by enemies of her father Khalid bin Mohammed, the soon-to-be king of Saudi Arabia. When he takes the throne, it's believed he will lead dramatic reforms that would bring his country and its residents into the 21st Century - not a place many of those residents want to be. Other outsiders are less inclined to believe his motives are genuine - after all, he's thought to be behind the recent murder of a dissident journalist (hmmm, now where have we heard something like that before)?Gabriel's reputation for fighting terrorists (and killing more than a few) are legendary, and Khalid wants him to find his daughter. To bring Gabriel into the fold, he turns to common acquaintance, art expert (and former CIA agent) Sarah Bancroft, with whom Khalid has a professional relationship. Gabriel isn't exactly a fan, but for the sake of the argument, he's willing to believe Khalid's claim that he'll turn his country away from radical Islam. Only one thing is certain: Both Gabriel and Khalid have a lot to lose should something go wrong (not the least of which is their lives).And go wrong it does, fairly early on with an unexpected and devastating event that changes the playing field and course of the story now focused on a Middle East power struggle. Along the way, Gabriel enlists help from colleagues old and new to work every angle he can to bring down political enemies old and new. The text is sprinkled with the author's political perspectives (I'm very interested with what's happening in that part of the world so that's fine with me, BTW). But I will carp a bit because Gabriel's beautiful wife Ciara and their young twins don't get enough mention to suit me.Everything comes to a head at the end with a cliff-hanger that may well be the impetus for the next book. For that, I'm ready already: Bring it on!