From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Other Woman  comes the first novel in the thrilling series featuring legendary assassin Gabriel Allon. Immersed in the quiet, meticulous life of an art restorer, former Israeli intelligence operative Gabriel Allon keeps his past well behind him. But now he is being called back into the game—and teamed with an agent who hides behind her own mask...as a beautiful fashion model.   Their target: a cunning terrorist on one last killing spree, a Palestinian zealot who played a dark part in Gabriel’s past. And what begins as a manhunt turns into a globe-spanning duel fueled by both political intrigue and deep personal passions... The Mideast peace process is on, and a breakaway Palestinian cell wants to sabotage it. Out of retirement comes the legendary Israeli assassin Gabriel Allon; he must recruit his onetime lover, a French supermodel cum spy, for a plot against the terrorist who, ten years earlier, planted a bomb in the car of his wife and son. The author pulls off the delicate operation of making no political statement whatsoever: this is congenial, undemanding genre fiction, in which even the good guys are bad, and the moral quandaries can't compete with the almost sexual thrill of very dangerous missions executed very well. Silva may never get around to plumbing his characters' souls, but he's having such a good time that we're content just to watch him play. Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker “[A] HEART-STOPPING, COMPLEX YARN OF INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM AND INTRIGUE…A thrilling roller-coaster ride, keeping readers guessing until the mind-bending conclusion.”— Publishers Weekly “A writer who is bringing NEW LIFE TO THE INTERNATIONAL THRILLER.” — Newsday   “A MASTER WRITER OF ESPIONAGE…[Daniel Silva’s] writing is clean, crisp, and compelling.”— T he Cincinnati Enquirer   “[A] THRILL-A-MINUTE SURE-FIRE BESTSELLER…[that] rips Middle East strife from the headlines.”— Kirkus Reviews The first Gabrel Allon novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva. Immersed in the quiet, meticulous life of an art restorer, former Israeli intelligence operative Gabriel Allon keeps his past well behind him. But now he is being called back into the game—and teamed with an agent who hides behind her own mask…as a beautiful fashion model. Their target: a cunning terrorist on one last killing spree, a Palestinian zealot who played a dark part in Gabriel’s past. And what begins as a manhunt turns into a globe-spanning duel fueled by both political intrigue and deep personal passions... Daniel Silva is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Unlikely Spy , The Mark of the Assassin , The Marching Season , and the Gabriel Allon series, including The Kill Artist , The English Assassin , The Confessor , A Death in Vienna , Prince of Fire , The Messenger , The Secret Servant , Moscow Rules , The Defector , The Rembrandt Affair , Portrait of a Spy , The Fallen Angel , The English Girl , The Heist , The English Spy , The Black Widow , and House of Spies . His books are published in more than thirty countries and are bestsellers around the world. By coincidence Timothy Peel arrived in the village the same week in July as the stranger. He and his mother moved into a ramshackle cottage at the head of the tidal creek with her latest lover, a struggling playwright named Derek, who drank too much wine and detested children. The stranger arrived two days later, settling into the old foreman’s cottage just up the creek from the oyster farm. Peel had little to do that summer—when Derek and his mother weren’t making clamorous love, they were taking inspirational forced marches along the cliffs—so he determined to find out exactly who the stranger was and what he was doing in Cornwall. Peel decided the best way to begin was to watch. Because he was eleven, and the only child of divorced parents, Peel was well schooled in the art of human observation and investigation. Like any good surveillance artist, he required a fixed post. He settled on his bedroom window, which had an unobstructed view over the creek. In the storage shed he found a pair of ancient Zeiss binoculars, and at the village store he purchased a small notebook and ballpoint pen for recording his watch report. The first thing Peel noticed was that the stranger liked old objects. His car was a vintage MG roadster. Peel would watch from his window as the man hunched over the motor for hours at a time, his back poking from beneath the bonnet. A man of great concentration, Peel concluded. A man of great mental endurance. After a month the stranger vanished. A few days passed, then a week, then a fortnight. Peel feared the stranger had spotted him and taken flight. Bored senseless without the routine of watching, Peel got into trouble. He was caught hurling a rock though the window of a tea shop in the village. Derek sentenced him to a week of solitary confinement in hi