The Rembrandt Affair

Product Description
Determined to sever his ties with the Office, Gabriel Allon has retreated to the windswept cliffs of Cornwall with his beautiful Venetian-born wife, Chiara. But once again his seclusion is interrupted by a visitor from his tangled past: the endearingly eccentric London art dealer Julian Isherwood. As usual, Isherwood has a problem. And it is one only Gabriel can solve. In the ancient English city of Glastonbury, an art restorer has been brutally murdered and a long-lost portrait by Rembrandt mysteriously stolen. Despite his reluctance, Gabriel is persuaded to use his unique skills to search for the painting and those responsible for the crime. But as he painstakingly follows a trail of clues leading from Amsterdam to Buenos Aires and, finally, to a villa on the graceful shores of Lake Geneva, Gabriel discovers there are deadly secrets connected to the painting. And evil men behind them. Before he is done, Gabriel will once again be drawn into a world he thought he had left behind forever, and will come face-to-face with a remarkable cast of characters: a glamorous London journalist who is determined to undo the worst mistake of her career, an elusive master art thief who is burdened by a conscience, and a powerful Swiss billionaire who is known for his good deeds but may just be behind one of the greatest threats facing the world. Filled with remarkable twists and turns of plot, and told with seductive prose, The Rembrandt Affair is more than just summer entertainment of the highest order. It is a timely reminder that there are men in the world who will do anything for money.
From Publishers Weekly
Silva's spy, assassin, and art-restoring protagonist, Gabriel Allon, returns in a fresh--and thrilling--international adventure. When an art restorer friend is killed and the Rembrandt painting he was working on stolen, Allon is lured out of a self-imposed retirement to investigate the crime. As the complex plot flips and twists from one country to the next, Phil Gigante keeps the plot moving forward with a calm, thoughtful reading that coils around the reader. His characters are perfectly drawn; the suspense, taut; and each individual is rendered distinctly: his reading of a Holocaust survivor's remembrance of being a little girl hiding from the Nazis is particularly effective and moving. A Putnam hardcover. (Aug.)
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Review
"Hypnotic prose…nonstop action."—
People****

"Silva has created a credible secret agent with skills that would make James Bond weep."—
The Dallas Morning News

"Silva sweeps readers from locale to locale in Europe, the Middle East, South America, and the United States, with generous doses of well-done local color. And he offers fascinating details on the techniques and technology of intelligence operations."—
St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"A fresh—and thrilling—international adventure."—
Publishers Weekly
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
PROLOGUE
PORT NAVAS, CORNWALL
By coincidence it was Timothy Peel who first learned that the stranger had returned to Cornwall. He made the discovery shortly before midnight on a rain-swept Wednesday in mid-September. And only because he had politely declined the persistent entreaties from the boys at work to attend the midweek bash at the Godolphin Arms up in Marazion.
It was a mystery to Peel why they still bothered to invite him. Truth be told, he had never cared much for the company of drinkers. And these days, whenever he set foot in a pub, there was at least one intoxicated soul who would try to badger him into talking about "little Adam Hathaway." Six months earlier, in one of the most dramatic rescues in the history of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, Peel had plucked the six-year-old boy from the treacherous surf off Sennen Cove. The newspapers had crowned Peel a national hero but were then dumbfounded when the broad-shouldered twenty-