Available:*
Shelf Number | Material Type | Copy | Shelf Location | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FIC SIL | Fiction | 1 | Standard shelving location | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Summary
In the electrifying new thriller from #1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva, Gabriel Allon undertakes a search for a stolen Vermeer masterpiece and uncovers a conspiracy that could bring the world to the brink of nuclear Armageddon.
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.
Elegant, meticulously plotted, and filled with a cast of unforgettable characters, The Collector moves swiftly from the graceful canals of Venice to the windswept coast of northern Denmark to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia-and, finally, to a heart-pounding climax in Russia as current as tomorrow's headlines.
'Silva builds suspense like a symphony conductor' Booklist
'A master of his craft' Adelaide Advertiser
'Gabriel Allon never fails' President Bill Clinton
'World-class' Washington Post
Author Notes
Daniel Silva was born in Michigan in 1960. While pursuing a master's degree in international relations, he received a temporary job with United Press International to help cover the 1984 Democratic National Convention. Soon after, he left his graduate program to work full-time for United Press International. He worked in San Francisco and Washington, D. C. and as a Middle East correspondent in Cairo and the Persian Gulf.
He was working at CNN when his first novel, The Unlikely Spy, was published. In 1997. He then left CNN to become a full-time author. His novels include The Fallen Angel, The English Girl, The Other Woman, and other titles in the Gabriel Allon series. He won the Barry Award for Best Thriller for The Messenger in 2006. In 2014 he made The New York Times Best Seller List with The Heist and The English Spy made the list in 2015. The Black Widow is his latest bestseller.
(Bowker Author Biography)