The Collector

The Collector by Daniel Silva 402 pp.

Daniel Silva masterfully continues the series that takes storylines from the headlines  and turns them into all too plausible plots in my favorite series. Gabriel Allon, art restorer and former head of Israeli Intelligence has retired from his spy/assassin duties to live a quiet life in Venice with his wife and children, working as an art restorer. At least that's the plan until he ends up involved in the recovery of a priceless Vermeer painting missing for decades. Allon teams up with a beautiful master thief and a Danish oil executive to recover the painting. The team ends up sidetracked in a race to stop the Russians from using a nuclear option against Ukraine. Even though retired, Allon enlists the assistance of his former colleagues of "the Office" so many of the usual characters once again appear in this novel,

The Cellist

 The Cellist by Daniel Silva 471 pp.

Even though I impatiently wait for the new Gabriel Allon books to be released, somehow I started but never finished this one. Maybe because all the veiled references to the then U.S. President and his criminal buddy, the Russian president. After the nerve agent poisoning of Viktor Orlov, an exiled Russian who once saved Allon's life, Gabriel is drawn into the investigation with British Intelligence. Believing the Brits are on the wrong track, Allon enlists the help of a talented young woman who worked for the dirtiest German bank, notorious for it's money laundering and other illegal activities. They set up a multi-billion dollar sting operation to catch the oligarch and childhood friend of the Russian president. The book ends with the inauguration of the new U.S. President following the insurrection at the Capitol when the Russians make one more attempt to eliminate Gabriel Allon. Following the novel is a chapter of commentary by Silva on the Trump attempts at overthrowing the election which he lost.   

Back to Blood

Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe  704 pp.

Miami is a melting pot of immigrants. A large part of the population is Cuban and the Cuban community is the main focus of this novel. Police Officer Nestor Camacho has become a pariah to his family and his Cuban neighborhood. Nestor is called a traitor for, in attempting to save the life of a Cuban trying to enter the country and preventing him from setting foot on land. Then Nestor has to face his superiors for doing an "unapproved" interview with the press following the incident. To compound things further, Nestor's girlfriend Magdalena dumps him for her boss, a psychiatrist who treats pornography addiction. Add in Russian millionaires, Jewish New Yorker senior citizens. an art forger, and a Haitian French professor who insists he and his kids are French and not Haitian and you have a jumbled mix of characters. The storylines of the characters cross, merge, and mingle in a plethora of ways that may or may not be resolved by the end of the book. I listened to the audio version with excellent narration by Lou Diamond Phillips. But in spite of the excellent performance by Phillips, the book was just so-so and way too long.