The Collector a novel
Legendary art restorer and spy Gabriel Allon joins forces with a brilliant and beautiful master-thief to track down the world's most valuable missing painting but soon finds himself in a desperate race to prevent an unthinkable conflict between Russia and the West.
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- ISBN: 9780062835178 (pbk.)
- Physical Description 532 pages (large print) ; 23 cm.
- Edition First Harper Large Print edition.
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Kirkus Review
The Collector : A Novel
Kirkus Reviews
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
A lost masterpiece and a professional hit lure the world's most famous spy back into the field. Summoned by an old friend to the Amalfi Coast, Gabriel Allon finds a murder scene and an empty stretcher that could have held only one painting, a painting of inestimable value that has been missing for decades--Vermeer's The Concert, stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston in 1990. Allon's search for this cultural treasure leads him to an alliance with a Danish IT consultant--and gifted thief--and it will require the assistance of the team he once led as head of Israel's intelligence service. As Silva's fans will expect, this hunt for a work of art will quickly turn into something much bigger--maybe a rush to avert World War III? Over the course of 22 novels featuring Allon, Silva has vacillated between escapism and realpolitik. This installment is a near-perfect combination of both. One of the pleasures of a Gabriel Allon novel is that it allows us entrée into a world few will ever experience. But even as he might leave readers sighing over a Versace gown or a Michelin-starred meal, Silva asks us to take a hard look at what money can do. He shows us an underground economy in which irreplaceable works of art are used as currency or collateral--or, at best, end up in private vaults where they are protected but inaccessible. And the same wealth that makes commissioning the theft of a well-known and well-guarded masterpiece possible makes murder easy. None of which is to say that this is an anti-capitalist screed. This is a thriller, and it satisfies in the ways that a thriller should while also offering food for thought. And if the plot hinges on one absolutely outrageous coincidence⦠well, Silva's fans will likely be willing to allow him that. Relevant and richly entertaining. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.