Unreal Book Deals: Dan Silva

In a spellbinding new masterpiece by #1 New York Times–bestselling author Daniel Silva, Gabriel Allon undertakes a high-stakes search for the greatest art forger who ever lived Legendary spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon has at long last severed ties with Israeli intelligence and settled quietly in Venice, the only place he has ever truly known peace. His beautiful wife, Chiara, has taken over day-to-day management of the Tiepolo Restoration Company, and their two young children are clandestinely enrolled in a neighborhood scuola elementare. For his part, Gabriel spends his days wandering the streets and canals of the watery city, parting company with the demons of his tragic, violent past. But when the eccentric London art dealer Julian Isherwood asks Gabriel to investigate the circumstances surrounding the rediscovery and lucrative sale of a centuries-old painting, he is drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse where nothing is as it seems. Gabriel soon discovers that the work in question, a portrait of an unidentified woman attributed to Sir Anthony van Dyck, is almost certainly a fiendishly clever fake. To find the mysterious figure who painted it—and uncover a multibillion-dollar fraud at the pinnacle of the art world—Gabriel conceives one of the most elaborate deceptions of his career. If it is to succeed, he must become the very mirror image of the man he seeks: the greatest art forger the world has ever known.

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#1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva delivers another stunning thriller in his action-packed tale of high stakes international intrigue. On the morning after the Venice Preservation Society’s annual black-tie gala, art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon enters his favorite coffee bar on the island of Murano to find General Cesare Ferrari, the commander of the Art Squad, eagerly awaiting his arrival. The Carabinieri have made a startling discovery in the Amalfi villa of a murdered South African shipping tycoon—a secret vault containing an empty frame and stretcher matching the dimensions of the world’s most valuable missing painting. General Ferrari asks Gabriel to quietly track down the artwork before the trail goes cold. “Isn’t that your job?” “Finding stolen paintings? Technically speaking, yes. But you’re much better at it than we are.” The painting in question is The Concert by Johannes Vermeer, one of thirteen works of art stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990. With the help of a most unlikely ally, a beautiful Danish computer hacker and professional thief, Gabriel soon discovers that the painting has changed hands as part of an illicit billion-dollar business deal involving a man code-named the Collector, an energy executive with close ties to the highest levels of Russian power. The missing masterpiece is the lynchpin of a conspiracy that if successful, could plunge the world into a conflict of apocalyptic proportions. To foil the plot, Gabriel must carry out a daring heist of his own, with millions of lives hanging in the balance.

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