Fallen Angel (Silva)

The Fallen Angel
Daniel Silva, 2012
HarperCollins
405 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062073129


Summary
After narrowly surviving his last operation, Gabriel Allon, the wayward son of Israeli intelligence, has taken refuge behind the walls of the Vatican, where he is restoring one of Caravaggio's greatest masterpieces.

But early one morning he is summoned to St. Peter's Basilica by Monsignor Luigi Donati, the all-powerful private secretary to his Holiness Pope Paul VII; the body of a beautiful woman lies broken beneath Michelangelo's magnificent dome. The Vatican police suspect suicide, though Gabriel believes otherwise.

So, it seems, does Donati. But the monsignor is fearful that a public inquiry might inflict another scandal on the Church, and so he calls upon Gabriel to quietly pursue the truth—with one caveat. "Rule number one at the Vatican," Donati said. "Don't ask too many questions."

Gabriel learns that the dead woman had uncovered a dangerous secret—a secret that threatens a global criminal enterprise that is looting timeless treasures of antiquity and selling them to the highest bidder. But there is more to this network than just greed. A mysterious operative is plotting an act of sabotage that will plunge the world into a conflict of apocalyptic proportions. (From the publisher.)

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Author Bio
• Birth—1960
• Where—Michigan, USA
• Currently—lives in Washington, D.C.

Daniel Silva was attending graduate school in San Francisco when United Press International offered him a temporary job covering the 1984 Democratic National Convention. Later that year, the wire service offered him full-time employment; he quit grad school and went to work for UPI—first in San Francisco, then in Washington, D.C., and finally as a Middle East Correspondent posted in Cairo. While covering the Iran-Iraq War in 1987, he met NBC correspondent Jamie Gangel. They married, and Silva returned to Washington to take a job with CNN.

Silva was still at CNN when, with the encouragement of his wife, he began work on his first novel, a WWII espionage thriller. Published in 1997, The Unlikely Spy became a surprise bestseller and garnered critical acclaim. ("Evocative.... Memorable..." said the Washington Post; "Briskly suspenseful," raved the New York Times). On the heels of this somewhat unexpected success, Silva quit his job to concentrate on writing.

Other books followed, all earning respectable reviews; but it was Silva's fourth novel that proved to be his big breakthrough. Featuring a world-famous art restorer and sometime Israeli agent named Gabriel Allon, The Kill Artist (2000) fired public imagination and soared to the top of the bestseller charts. Gabriel Allon has gone on to star in several sequels, and his creator has become one of our foremost novelists of espionage intrigue, earning comparisons to such genre superstars as John le Carre, Frederick Forsythe, and Robert Ludlum. Silva's books have been translated into more than 25 languages and have been published around the world. (From Barnes & Noble.)

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Book Reviews
Daniel Silva’s The Fallen Angel soars with authenticity….The Fallen Angel delivers the goods….Riveting espionage adventures that have timely, real-world relevance.
Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram


The Fallen Angel is a first-class spy mystery painted on a grand scale, appropriate because its protagonist, Gabriel Allon, is an expert art restorer; sometime friend of the Vatican; on-again, off-again intelligence agent for the Israeli government — and occasional assassin. If the novel has flaws, they lie in Silva’s intensive, relentless attention to detail. He made himself an expert on religion (Roman Catholic and Jewish), international espionage, European and Middle Eastern history and geography as well as other subjects. The details sometimes add excess baggage to the storytelling.Meticulously researched....The Fallen Angel is a first-class spy mystery painted on a grand scale.
Columbus Dispatch


The Fallen Angel is no conventional murder mystery; the plot's ramifications stretch back to Europe and the Middle East in shocking and violent ways. Silva is no purveyor of minimalism; his books have active plots and bold, dramatic themes. They cover a staggeringly wide range of subjects. In addition to murder and art restoration, "The Fallen Angel" dabbles in the antiquities trafficking trade, Vatican politics, organized crime, religious mythologies and histories, political realities and, of course, the growing threat of radical Islamic fundamentalism and its desire for the destruction of Israel.
Tulsa World


His past 12 books, all featuring enigmatic spy/art restorer Gabriel Allon, have kept Silva’s name high in the ranks; the latest, the Vatican-set The Fallen Angel, seems unlikely to reverse the trend.
Arizona Republic


It’s become almost obligatory for lovers of high level thrillers to read each new Daniel Silva novel as soon as it appears. With his by now trademark character, Gabriel Allon...Silva just about guarantees a couple of days of terrific entertainment.
NPR, All Things Considered


Another heart-pounding escapade of art restorer and Israeli intelligence legend Gabriel Allon gets masterful treatment.
AudioFile Magazine


Fast-paced action thriller from old hand Silva (Portrait of a Spy, 2001, etc.), whose hero Gabriel Allon returns in fine form. As Silva's legion of fans—including, it seems, every policy wonk inside the Beltway and Acela Corridor—knows, Gabriel is not just your ordinary spy. He's a capable assassin, for one thing, and a noted art restorer for another, which means that his adventures often find him in the presence of immortal works of art and bad guys who would put them to bad use. This newest whodunit is no exception: Gabriel's in the Vatican, working away at a Caravaggio, when he gets caught up in an anomalous scene—as a friendly Jesuit puts it with considerable understatement, "We have a problem." The problem is that another Vatican insider has gone splat on the mosaic floor, having fallen some distance from the dome. Did she jump, or was she pushed? Either way, as the victim's next of kin puts it, again with considerable understatement, "I'm afraid my sister left quite a mess." She did indeed, and straightening it up requires Gabriel to grapple with baddies in far-flung places around Europe and the Middle East. It would be spoiling things to go too deep into what he finds, but suffice it to say that things have been going missing from the Vatican's collections to fund a variety of nefarious activities directly and indirectly, including some ugly terrorism out Jerusalem way. But set Gabriel to scaling flights of Herodian stairs, and the mysteries fall into place—not least of them the location of a certain structure built for a certain deity by a certain biblical fellow. The plot's a hoot, but a believable one; think a confection by Umberto Eco as starring Jonathan Hemlock, or a Dan Brown yarn intelligently plotted and written, and you'll have a sense of what Silva is up to here. It's a grand entertainment to watch Silva putting Gabriel Allon's skills to work, whether shedding blood or daubing varnish—a top-notch thriller.
Kirkus Reviews

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Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for The Fallen Angel:

1. How would you describe Gabriel Allon as a character—his personality and inner-makeup? Does author Daniel Silva, in fact, give Allon an inner-life? Or is Allon, like many thriller heroes, a one-dimensional man of action?

2. Follow-up to Question 1: One reviewer describes Allon as a "Renaissance man." What does that phrase mean? Do you agree with the description...and if so, in what way?

3. Follow-up to Questions 1 & 2: Allon has also been referred to as "the perfect hero for the new millennium." Silva himself, who earlier gave Allon the task of hunting down the real-life killers of the Israel  athletes in the 1972 Munich Olympics, says he wants Allon, to be an "epic" character. What do those two statements mean? Is Allon a perfect hero for our age and/or an epic figure?

4. Talk about Monsignor Luigi Donati. What do you think of him? He's portrayed as the true power behind the papal throne. I that a troublesome concept—that one other than the Pope wields the power in the Vatican? What does Donati mean when he cautions Gabriel that the first rule at the Vatican is not to ask too many questions?

5. Silva explores the tensions in the Middle East between Muslims and Jews, each side committed to claiming its own land. Whom does Silva side with in this violent dispute? Does he explain the issues of both sides equally? Or does he align himself more heavily with one side to the exclusion of the other? With whom are you aligned? Has the book enhanced your understanding of the Mid-East conflict? Does it alter your views...or confirm them?

6. After reading The Fallen Angel, do you feel there is any hope for the Mid-East conflict? What does the future hold for the region?

7. Talk about the way in which the book mentions both Austria and Switzerland. What is Silva's argument regarding the history of those countries?

8. What is the meaning of the recurring quote, "Blood never sleeps"?

9. Trace the double plots—the death of Claudia Andreatti with the Middle East intrigue. How does Silva bring them together in the book? Are the two plots woven together seamlessly...or does it feel forced?

10. What about the stolen antiquities and the Vatican's involvement. Does this part of the plot seem preposterous...or does Silva make it believable?

11. Why might Silva have named his hero after the angel Gabriel? And what is the significance of the book's title?

12. The Fallen Angel covers a wide range of topics: art restoration, antiquities trafficking, Vatican politics, organized crime, religious history, and geopolitics. Is there too much going on in this thriller? Were you able to keep track of the ins and outs of the plot? Did you find all parts of the story engaging...or were there parts that were overly digressive?

13. Have you read Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code? If so, are there similarities between this book and Brown's? Do you prefer one over the other?

14. Does this book live up to its expectations as a suspense thriller? Have you read other Silva books; if so, how does this one compare?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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