What I've Been Reading Lately: Daniel Silva's Portrait of a Spy

Time is valuable and there is so little time to do the recreational reading I so favor.

And what is that, you presume to ask? In response, I enjoy rivetting spy novels along with historical fiction.

Daniel Silva has long been my favorite fast -read writer of international thrillers. His latest, Portrait of a Spy (a 7 day loan book from my local library) grabbed my attention from the opening chapters.

As background, we learn that two separate suicide bomber attacks have this very day set off  explosions  claiming  dozens of  lives in Copenhagen and Paris. Naturally, London is under a high alert.

Gabriel Allon travels to London with his wife Chiara  to size up an art restoration job. After the consult,  the two are seeking a quiet out of the way Restaurante and they decide to walk through London's crowded  Covent Garden to get to their destination.

  Gabriel begins scanning the crowd  in the piazza with the eyes of a spy always on the look out for terrorists; he spots what he calls a  'dead man' with a "tributary of sweat leaking  from his left sideburn on a crisp autumn afternoon."  His hands are "buried in the pockets of his woolen overcoat." And in Gabriel's opinion he is wearing  a coat that is a size too big for him.

Could he be carrying 50 pounds of  high explosives, nails and ball bearings?

The would be terrorist is checking his watch which he wears on his left hand. Could the detonator switch be in his right hand?

The hour is 2:34 PM London time. The other two bombings had occurred at 11:46 and then at 12:03 this very day.

Gabriel's mind attempts to find some pattern in the alignment of times. Suddenly, he finds the connections. The Twin Towers were struck successively at 46 minutes past the hours and then 17 minutes later at 3 minutes past the hour. The third plane was flown into the Pentagon at 9:37 AM, which is 2:37 PM London time.

Gabriel decides to act and just as he is about to execute the madman with his Beretta "two powerful hands pulled the gun downward and the weight of two men drove him toward the pavement."

Tragedy ensues.

The rest of the novel (which I will allow my reader to fathom) hurls incessantly to Gabriel's confrontation of the mastermind behind these crimes.

The final chapters take us to the Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai and then the Empty Quarter in Saudi Arabia a vast expanse of desert with massive dunes and temperatures hitting 140 farenheit.

It's a great quick read.