The Kill Artist

By: Daniel Silva

Narrated by: George Guidall

Tightly written thrillers like The Marching Season have made best-selling novelist Daniel Silva a favorite of readers everywhere. In The Kill Artist, he paints an absorbing portrait of a reluctant hero’s attempt to thwart an old enemy to preserve a precarious peace.

After the assassination of his wife and son, Gabriel Allon retires from his brutal anti-terrorist career and loses himself in his previous cover job: art restoration. But when Tariq al-Hourani, the Palestinian terrorist responsible for his family’s death, begins a killing spree designed to destroy Middle East peace talks, Gabriel once again slips into the shadowy world of international intrigue. In a global game of hide-and-seek, the motives of Gabriel and Tariq soon become more personal than political.

Filled with vivid action and a fascinating cast of supporting characters, The Kill Artist delivers pulse-pounding suspense, carried to a startling climax by the tension-packed narration of George Guidall.

©2000 Daniel Silva (P)2001 Recorded Books

An Assassin with a conscience

I have had this book on my shelf for some time now and decided to see for myself if Daniel Silva's Israeli assassin, Gabriel Allon, was as good as I have heard. I can honestly say that Gabriel did not fit into my image of an assassin.

As the story begins, a mysterious stranger moves into a old cottage in an isolated English village, Port Navas Cornwall. The first chapter is told from the viewpoint of Peel, a boy of around 10, who had also recently moved to the village with his mother. Therefore, it takes several chapters to find out the stranger is Gabriel Allon.

Gabriel was a world renowned art restorer, the cover job he had in order to hide the fact that he worked for the Israeli intelligence service. However, he "retired" from the clandestine service nearly 10 years previously when a terrorist he was contracted to take out placed a bomb under his car, killing his son and turning his wife into an empty shell. After that, Gabriel went into a self imposed exile and immersed himself into restoring paintings in the hope of forgetting the past.

Then the Israeli ambassador and his wife are killed by terrorists in Paris, and Ari Shamron, head of the intelligence service, discovers the assassin was none other than Tariq, the Palestinian who destroyed Gabriel's family. Shamron trusts no one, and secretly goes to England to bring Gabriel back for one more mission. Gabriel can not refuse, even though he knows killing Tariq will not bring his family back.

In other novels featuring assassins, they tend to be cold and calculating, justifying their actions by believing the target deserved to die for their transgressions. Gabriel, however, has flashbacks and feels guilty for what he has done. Benjamin Stone, a wealthy backer of the Israeli operation, describes Gabriel as "an assassin with a conscience."

Given all the baggage Gabriel is carrying around, I had my doubts as to whether he would be an effective assassin. Add in the fact that he has been inactive for nearly 10 years and he was at a distinct disadvantage.

I thought the book started out slowly, but it gradually picked up its pace before finally reaching its climax. But even after the climax, there were more plot twists which tied the story into a neat little ball. Gabriel seemed to enjoy restoring paintings much more than his other line of work. Therefor, this is not the typical testosterone filled prose that one would associate with a story about an assassin, but rather paints a softer, more human side of the occupation.

There are several more books in the series, so I am anxious to find out what would bring him out of retirement again

Main Protagonist Just Seemed Sub Par

Any additional comments?

The book provided some detailed events that provide the roll each character was intended to play. However, as the book progressed it seemed that the roll of the main protagonist, Gabriel fell further and further from expectation. He was supposed to be this legendary asset, one with an incredible sixth sense for danger and intuition for uncovering nefarious plots (and so on). However, by the end, he has messed up and made so many rash decisions that the female protagonist came out to look more professional and really... bad ass than Gabriel. There was nothing in the book that impressed my or convinced me that he was anything more than a paranoid art restorer. Even the antagonist was portrayed as one who was miles ahead as being a "Kill Artist", and beat gabriel every, and I mean every time. Seriously, by the end of the book, I really couldn't have given a rats ass about Gabriel and his mediocre personality. One part of the book made me laugh when Gabriel told the female pro that " we have all suffered, so what". haha. He punishes himself for loosing his family and suffers because of those mistakes, yet brushes aside the idea that everyone suffers, with bigoted nonchalance. Lets see if the second book does any better, since Gabriels persona doesn't need to be totally established and the author can build on the previous book for character growth.

Interesting but not a Page Turner

This book kept my interest enough to listen all the way through. I kept expecting it to become compelling, and it rarely did in my opinion. The characters were well developed, but I felt like there was more time spent describing characters and setting than on the storyline.
I’m a fan of quick witted and cool spy characters, and it’s possible that I was expecting someone that the author never intended to deliver. It seemed well written and researched, but
it was a little slow for my taste.

Great story!

George Guidall does a masterful job with this wonderful, exciting story.
Daniel Silva shows his knowledge of the world very few of us ever see, much less realize that it exists.

Not about art in the slightest

If you decide to purchase this based on its description as having something to do with Art, don't bother. It is a typical spy thriller and the protagonist's identity as an art restorer is the tiniest bit of the narrative. If you like nasty, brutal stories, with an interesting bit of Mideast history and politics thrown in, however, this is the book for you.