House of Spies

Spy thrillers aren't my typical fare but my book club chose it, so I read it.

That being said, this isn't my first spy thriller read, though I hadn't read a Daniel Silva book before.

The writing is solid, well researched, and fairly clean in terms of language, though there are a few swear words. Spies, you know. There's violence and death, but I expected nothing different due to the genre. The deaths aren't gory.

Many in my book club had trouble keeping track of characters, which is understandable as several of them go by multiple names.

Though this is well into the series, it can be read as a stand alone and the reader won't be lost.

Amazon

Four months after the deadliest attack on the American homeland since 9/11, terrorists leave a trail of carnage through London’s glittering West End. The attack is a brilliant feat of planning and secrecy, but with one loose thread. 

The thread leads Gabriel Allon and his team of operatives to the south of France and to the gilded doorstep of Jean-Luc Martel and Olivia Watson. A beautiful former British fashion model, Olivia pretends not to know that the true source of Martel’s enormous wealth is drugs. And Martel, likewise, turns a blind eye to the fact he is doing business with a man whose objective is the very destruction of the West. Together, under Gabriel’s skilled hand, they will become an unlikely pair of heroes in the global war on terror.

Written in seductive and elegant prose, the story moves swiftly from the glamour of Saint-Tropez to the grit of Casablanca and, finally, to an electrifying climax that will leave readers breathless long after they turn the final page.