I just finished reading Daniel Silva's latest spy novel, The Black Widow - featuring Israeli spy Gabriel Allon - and thoroughly enjoyed it. I was on the waiting list for it at the Denver Public Library for about 4 months, and so I knew that if that many people were requesting it, it had to be good. The story involves sending a civilian volunteer undercover into the heart of ISIS, which turns out to be - surprise! - pretty harrowing. This is a familiar plot line in Silva's books, and I have to say, all of these volunteers usually wind up within seconds of a horrible end. And in one case, his undercover agent was actually beheaded. And yet spymaster Gabriel Allon always seems to be able to persuade these people to help him. Talk about a great salesman. The one criticism I have is that, like another author I like, Steve Berry, Silva's political opinions are starting to show. In The Black Widow, Silva seems to blame Barack Obama for the violent situation in the Middle East and for the rise of ISIS. On the other hand, I am now reading one of his older books, The Messenger, and in that book he wasn't crazy about the previous president, either, so who knows?
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