Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by fredmoyer
The Messenger by Daniel Silva
3.0
Usual Gabriel Allon style, but weaker storyline than previous books
“The Messenger” is the sixth book in the Gabriel Allon series. At this point, there are basic similarities style-wise with all stories in this series. But this book’s storyline was more over-the-top than the others, even though it turned out that most of Gabriel’s actions did not actually have any impact of the major purpose for the Israeli counter-terrorism operation.
The most entertaining aspect is that Gabriel has to bring a novice into the team, train her and then have her go to work for a Saudi bankroller of terrorists while also acting as a mole who is looking for the Israeli’s assassin target to finally surface from hiding.
So why do I complain about the storyline? *** SPOILERS ***
- The terrorists attack of the Vatican felt too over-the-top. And since that never actually happened, the usual mix of history and fiction, common to all Gabriel Allon books, fails here.
- The mole’s cover is blown. But Gabriel saves her at the very last minute. That was too much like the ending for a poorly imagined one-hour TV show.
- With the mole’s cover blown, the whole effort to assassinate the targeted terrorist fails. But, like the ending for most Gabriel Allon books, a quick follow-up operation (via a completely different plan) succeeds. So 90% of the Gabriel’s actions turned out to be irrelevant to story’s final outcome. (That was probably the most realistic aspect of the story, though.)
Bottom line: Weaker storyline than the book’s predecessors. But Gabriel and his team are as entertaining as ever.
“The Messenger” is the sixth book in the Gabriel Allon series. At this point, there are basic similarities style-wise with all stories in this series. But this book’s storyline was more over-the-top than the others, even though it turned out that most of Gabriel’s actions did not actually have any impact of the major purpose for the Israeli counter-terrorism operation.
The most entertaining aspect is that Gabriel has to bring a novice into the team, train her and then have her go to work for a Saudi bankroller of terrorists while also acting as a mole who is looking for the Israeli’s assassin target to finally surface from hiding.
So why do I complain about the storyline? *** SPOILERS ***
- The terrorists attack of the Vatican felt too over-the-top. And since that never actually happened, the usual mix of history and fiction, common to all Gabriel Allon books, fails here.
- The mole’s cover is blown. But Gabriel saves her at the very last minute. That was too much like the ending for a poorly imagined one-hour TV show.
- With the mole’s cover blown, the whole effort to assassinate the targeted terrorist fails. But, like the ending for most Gabriel Allon books, a quick follow-up operation (via a completely different plan) succeeds. So 90% of the Gabriel’s actions turned out to be irrelevant to story’s final outcome. (That was probably the most realistic aspect of the story, though.)
Bottom line: Weaker storyline than the book’s predecessors. But Gabriel and his team are as entertaining as ever.