Daniel Silva: The Messenger (UK 2007)

From the Publisher:
Gabriel Allon, art restorer and spy, is about to face the greatest challenge of his life.
An al-Qaeda suspect is killed in London, and photographs are found on his computer - photographs that lead Israeli intelligence to suspect that al-Qaeda is planning one of its most audacious attacks ever, straight at the heart of the Vatican.

Allon warns the Pope's private secretary, his old friend Monsignor Luigi Donati, and rushes to Rome to assist in the security. But what neither he nor Donati knows is that the Vatican has been thoroughly penetrated. An extraordinary enemy walks among them... and he's just getting started.

In the days and weeks to come, Allon and his colleagues will find themselves in a deadly duel of wits against one of the most dangerous men in the world - a hunt that will take them across Europe to the Caribbean and back again. But for them, there may simply not be enough of anything: enough time, enough facts, enough luck.

Daniel Silva: The Messenger. Penguin, ISBN: 0141026715 (July, 2007), 451 p., £6.99.

Daniel Silva: The Messenger (USA 2007)

From the Publisher:
On the trail of a deadly al-Qaeda operative, Gabriel Allon returns in a spellbinding story of deception, power, and revenge by the #1 New York Times bestselling "world-class practitioner of spy fiction" (Washington Post).

Gabriel Allon -- art restorer and spy -- is about to face the greatest challenge of his life. An al-Qaeda suspect is killed in London, and photographs are found on his computer -- photographs that lead Israeli intelligence to suspect that al-Qaeda is planning one of its most audacious attacks ever, aimed straight at the heart of the Vatican.

Allon and his colleagues soon find themselves in a deadly duel of wits against one of the most dangerous men in the world -- a hunt that will take them across Europe to the Caribbean and back. But for them, there may not be enough of anything: enough time, enough facts, enough luck.

All Allon can do is set his trap -- and hope that he is not the one caught in it.

Daniel Silva: The Messenger. A Novel. Signet, ISBN: 0451221729 (July, 2007), 500 p., $9.99.

Daniel Silva: The Messenger (USA 2006)

From the Publisher:
Gabriel Allon, art restorer and spy, has been widely acclaimed as one of the most fascinating characters in the genre and now he is about to face the greatest challenge of his life.

Allon is recovering from a grueling showdown with a Palestinian master terrorist, when a figure from his past arrives in Jerusalem. Monsignor Luigi Donati is the private secretary to His Holiness Pope Paul VII, and a man as ruthless as he is intelligent. Now, however, he has come to seek Allon's help. A young Swiss guard has been found dead in St. Peter's Basilica, and although Donati has allowed the official inquiry to determine that it is suicide, his instinct tells him that it is murder-and that his master is in grave danger. He has trusted Allon in the past, and he is the only man he trusts now.

Allon reluctantly agrees to get involved, but once he begins to investigate he concludes that Donati has every right to be concerned, as, following the trail from the heart of the Vatican to the valleys of Switzerland and beyond, he slowly unravels a conspiracy of lies and deception. An extraordinary enemy walks among them, with but one goal: the most spectacular assassination ever attempted.

Filled with remarkable characters and breathtaking double and triple turns of plot, The Messenger solidifies Silva's reputation as his generation's finest writer of international thrillers.

Daniel Silva: The Messenger. A Novel. Putnam's, ISBN: 0399153357 (July, 2006), 338 p., $25.95.