| | |  | Terrorism | Home » » The Defector (Gabriel Allon Novels) | | | | | | | Description: | | Grigori Bulganov once saved Gabriel Allon's life in Moscow-and Allon always repays his debts. So when the former Russian intelligence officer vanishes, Allon gathers his team of operatives to go after those responsible. But, in a running battle that rages across the globe, Allon soon realizes that his enemy may already hold the key to victory. And that if he continues, it will cost him more than he can bear...
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70 of 81 found the following review helpful:
it's not business; it's personalJul 22, 2009
By Julia M. Walker
It seems that the State of Israel is having no trouble in the great wide world. Its most accomplished agent is once again free to pursue matters of personal honor, unencumbered by obligations to Mossad, and indeed aided by that legendary organization.
Daniel Silva's early thrillers - both the Gabriel Allon series and the three Michael Osbourne novels - are among my all-time favorite reads. The Prince of Fire is one of the two best thrillers I've ever read, and The Unlikely Spy is a richly researched nail-biter set in WWII London. But the last two Gabriel Allon books were below Silva's usual standard, far below. The Defector is better than those, but not up to the early work. There's very little of Italy here - or any other setting -- and virtually no art restoration, and I'm exceedingly sad to see that Silva is close to churning out a Pattersonesque formula thriller.
Here we go:
Part 1: something bad happens to someone Gabriel knows
Part 2: Gabriel assembles a team and mounts a complex plan to fix things (being a fan of planning, I like this part best, but it was sadly diminished here)
Part 3: Gabriel or Shamron forces the US or the UK to carry the can
Part 4: lots of blood; and more blood
Part 5: Gabriel and his support staff tie up loose ends with yet more blood
No surprises here, although Silva does forego Gabriel's seemingly obligatory trip to St Peters.
Any writer can have an off year, but this makes three off years for Silva. What's up with that?
One possible answer is that he's working from his files, rather than doing research. I wouldn't care, were Silva not so addicted to the use of the particular. Without research, the details suffer, of course. It doesn't really matter that the Queens Lane Coffee House has regular panes, not latticed windows or that Rectory Road runs uphill from the Cowley Road, but it does matter that Grigori is in the Harrow Road at 6:12 pm, planning to be at St George's Bloomsbury at 6:30 on a rainy January night in a plot where every minute is supposed to be significant. Unless he is The Winged Defector, there's no chance. (And that church, BTW, is not in New Oxford St, but Bloomsbury Row.)
OK, who cares? Well, if the rest of the book were more carefully put together, I wouldn't. But if a writer says that place and time are important, then he needs to be careful with both. Or simply make up everything.
The material about the Great Terror reads like an add-on. Other than those ominous references to parallel depressions in the earth, you'll never see this coming: it arises from neither the plot nor the characters. Yes, Ivan Kharkov is hastily endowed with a Stalin fixation, but that's clearly an afterthought. Silva needed something ideological to balance the body-count, so we get a quick lecture on Stalinist executions. The Afterword makes the case better than does the narrative, but with some more attention to character or plot lines, Silva could have had it both ways.
Sadly, his interest in anyone but Gabriel diminishes with each novel, it seems. And, as another reviewer points out, even Gabriel fails to develop internally.
When James Patterson runs out of plots, he has A Serial Killer Go After Alex Cross's Family. [!!!] It works every time, judging from sales, and that appears to be what Mr Silva going for.
One of the hardest things to sustain in a long series is a plausible threat. This is why so many series' feature the police or private detectives. Threats are their business. Surely the State of Israel hasn't run out of enemies, so why Silva insists on making the threat personal is, perhaps, the biggest mystery here.
Still, a bad-ish Silva is better than most things you can pick up to read on a hot summer's night. The Defector is better than the last two in this series, and the tension is ferocious for the last 150 pages, so enjoy.
53 of 68 found the following review helpful:
 The same old thingAug 04, 2009
By David Abramowitz
I have read all of Silva's books, and I enjoy his writing style. However, he is starting to get boring and is going down the same path as Grisham turning out books as fast as possible to make a buck.
The Defector is the same old plot. Gabriel Allon is the reluctant spy who must come out of retirement to fight evil. Has occasional clashes with Shamron, his Israeli handler, who convinces him to go after the enemy. No surprises. Always happy ending.
Silva is a wonderful author. It's a shame he doesn't put much thought into his newer novels. I'll think twice about buying the next one.
9 of 10 found the following review helpful:
 "By way of deception, thou shalt do war."Aug 19, 2009
By E. Bukowsky
"booklover10"
Daniel Silva's "The Defector" is a sequel to "Moscow Rules," in which superspy Gabriel Allon and his team attempted to outsmart the sadistic Russian oligarch, Ivan Kharkov, with the help of Kharkov's disaffected wife, Elena. Kharkov, a former KGB agent, is a ruthless arms dealer who foments violence all over the world for profit. Of late, Allon has been living a placid life in an Italian villa under an assumed name along with his new wife, Chiara. He spends much of his time restoring priceless works of art for the Vatican. Unfortunately, his tranquil existence is rudely disrupted when Colonel Grigori Bulganov, former member of the Russian Federal Security Service and a defector to the west, suddenly disappears from London. Did Bulganov willingly return to Moscow to resume his old life? Allon, who knew the man well, firmly believes that this is an unlikely scenario, since Grigori not only hated the new Russia, but was also enjoying his life as a celebrity dissident. Gabriel fears that Kharkov must have orchestrated Grigori's abduction for reasons that will soon become apparent. When another key person vanishes, Allon, with the help of his former superior and advisor, eighty-year old Ari Shamron, as well as other poweful spymasters from England and America, arranges a complex extraction on Russian soil. If his plan should go awry, it could cost quite a few Jewish lives.
This is not one of Silva's finest efforts. Too much of this four-hundred and sixty-page novel is devoted to endless exposition, in which the author rehashes events from "Moscow Rules" and other earlier books. "The Defector" is almost entirely plot driven and populated by one-dimensional characters. The over-the-top scenes of torture and violence and the unimaginative dialogue do not help matters, nor does such hackneyed prose as "Blood was going to flow. And men were going to die." This is unchallenging and unoriginal action thriller in which Silva has little to say that he has not said before more eloquently. "The Defector" lacks the emotional heft, wrenching ethical dilemmas, and electrifying confrontations that have, in the past, made Silva's books so spellbinding.
8 of 10 found the following review helpful:
Disappointing after MOSCOW RULESAug 03, 2009
By T. Bacon
"Anglican forever"
Whereas MOSCOW RULES brings us fresh storylines and develops the
main characters with a flair for which Silva is known, this title
gets bogged down in certain areas, primarily due to the fact that
the author relies too much upon "wasting" one character after
another in a grim parade of Russian creeps who dare to cross Allon or interrupt his vendetta agendas in any one of many
European countries.
The violence is gratuitous and grounds for so many executions
are too superficial to be taken seriously by an attentive reader.
A hero with the gifts ascribed to Allon, the restorer of canvas
masterpieces and close buddy of the Pope, should be much more than a slick assassin. He's sensitive and loyal enough to his wife and friends for sure. But his bloodthirsty side feels like
nothing deeper than hits ordered wholesale by the likes of Tony
Soprano. I expected much more depth, more reasoning, more internal conflict and dialog. Not just one murder after another.
Better luck next time, Mr. Silva.
14 of 19 found the following review helpful:
It's okay, but I feel like I've read this beforeAug 09, 2009
By Thriller Fan
I love Gabriel Allon, however these books are becoming repetitious, giving him the same conflicts to face and forcing him to use the same methods of resolution. I feel like I've read this plot before in Silva's previous books. As another reviewer commented, some of the pages of this book could be interchanged with another of Silva's and you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I hate to say that this book is predictable, but it's close.
Gabriel Allon is a smart enough character to find new ways of dealing with the bad guys. There shouldn't be a formula, i.e. the opening death of someone who affects Gabriel, the training or usage of a novice non-spy, inserting him/her into danger, then capturing that bad guy or interrogating him for the next bad guy... I've read it before at least twice that I can remember. ****Spoiler**** Not to mention the Messenger-like ending in which the supervillain is taken down in one chapter -- far too neatly after a book's worth of angst and planning.
And this may seem a strange criticism since I love the character of Gabriel Allon so much -- but why is he the center of the world's universe? Why do the most important figures in the world fall all over each other to do what they can for him and engage in corny exchanges like this:
"Trouble in the woods outside Moscow." (spoken by the President referring to Allon in the field).
"Anything we can do?"
"Pray."
That part made me cringe. I was embarrassed for the President, being forced to say that.
Here's hoping the next Allon novel has an original plot and Gabriel steps out of his formula. I truly enjoy him, but I think he's being wasted.
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