Ari Shamron, a Mossad spymaster, recruited and trained Allon, his best agent. Allon is also his most troubled agent, for reasons that go beyond the fateful day involving Allon’s wife and son. Shamron and Allon are as different as night and day: Allon loathes violence, while Shamron revels in it; Allon does not believe that everything that the Israeli government has done is for the best, while Shamron can not believe otherwise; Allon believes that revenge leads to spiritual death, while Shamron believes that revenge is a biblical necessity. Strangely, though, they make a superior team. Gabriel travels to Paris. Enroute he listens to the surveillance tapes, trying to fill in the gaps. After arriving in Paris, he meets with Ari Shamron. Uzi Navot, whom Gabriel has never met before, is also present; Gabriel instantly dislikes Uzi. The tapes reveal that al-Tawfiki wants Jacqueline to travel to an undisclosed location with a man she has never met whom al-Tawfiki describes as a peace-loving Palestinian diplomat who needs attend a meeting so he can express his reservations about the impact of the peace process on the Palestinians. Gabriel says that the Office should kill al-Tawfiki and forget about al-Hourani. Shamron responds that he does not want the former; he wants the latter. In Montreal, Leila rents a car and drives with Jacqueline to a major hotel in the city. At the hotel, Jacqueline meets "Lucien Daveau." Tariq al-Hourani maintains his false identity and challenges Jacqueline's motivation for accompanying him. She replies that she is with him out of love for Yusef al-Tawfiki. Al-Hourani takes her shopping for clothes appropriate to the winter weather of Montreal.

Jacqueline Delacroix, a fashion model who had an affair with Gabriel, has a bad experience at a photo shoot and decides to go on a vacation. Kemel Azouri and Tariq al-Hourani meet in Lisbon and Azouri tells al-Hourani about events in London. They arrange to have Jacqueline followed and al-Hourani explains the plan for his next action. Jacqueline goes to dinner with al-Tawfiki. While al-Twafiki's apartment is empty, Gabriel enters and places listening devices while Randall Karp watches for al-Tawfiki's return. Gabriel recovers from his wound in Israel, where Jacqueline has been forced to relocate due to media coverage of the event. One day, Gabriel spots Yusef in a local market and questions him at gunpoint. Yusef admits that he was working for Shamron as a double agent, and that Shamron had concocted the whole plot so Gabriel could finish off Tariq. When an angry Gabriel confronts Shamron, the wizened director is unapologetic and insists that it was both necessary to kill Tariq and just to have the killer be Gabriel.

I’m always surprised when a premise of a book sounds so good – a perfect swish, and then the book itself is like a big old airball. Meet Gabriel Allon: super spy, art restorerer, tortured soul, handsome, ruthless, boring.

I did not care for the narrator George Guidall. He made Gabriel the hero sound like a clerk or librarian. It didn’t fit the sexy macho agent. And he made the bad guy sound wimpy. Other parts were ok, but overall his voice was not as good for me as other narrators. In Paris, Tariq al-Hourani kills the Israeli ambassador, his wife and two bodyguards. He then shoots and kills an American student he had being seeing as cover. Ari Shamron has been reinstated as director of the Office after a series of disasters. Shamron is saddled with Lev Ahroni as his operations chief. Shamron watches international news feeds of the assassination. He calls Uzi Navot in Paris and issues instructions then travels to Jerusalem to brief the Prime Minister. He identifies the perpetrator as al-Hourani and asks permission to assign Gabriel to kill al-Hourani. The prime minister agrees. However, maybe Silva was making Tariq the protagonist...because he fit the bill of the larger than life, competent protagonist more than did Gabriel.The Story was ok. But, it should have probably centered more around the Terrorist. He was more interesting than the Israeli agent (Gabriel). The Israeli agent really didn't do anything right, from the beginning to the end. He had a legendary reputation, but it sure didn't come from anything he did in this book. The Terrorist did everything right, then became the compassionate one in the end.

Like many of this genre, you have a good (and troubled) guy who works for Israeli intelligence working with his stunningly beautiful and capable heroine with whom he has a complicated (of course) relationship. And of course, you have the bad guys who are always one step ahead of the good guys, but then the good guys catch up, but then the bad guys catch on, etc., etc. The operation that follows is a tortuous affair, marked by departmental wrangling, hidden political agendas, and wheels within wheels. The action unfolds in a series of crisp, tightly constructed set pieces that range from the capitals of Europe (Paris, London, Lisbon) to Jerusalem itself, with intermittent stops in Montreal, New York City, and Washington, DC. Characters caught up in the drama include a London-based art dealer who has fallen on hard times, a Rupert Murdoch- style media magnate, and a world famous fashion model whose glossy, high-profile lifestyle conceals her tragic family history, and her occasional role as a clandestine operative for the Israeli secret service.

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Daniel Silva’s book sounds great! A spy who restores masterpieces, who is out for revenge for his murdered family but doesn’t really like to kill people. He’s recruited from retirement by a ruthless Israeli agent who wants to stop an equally ruthless Palestinian terrorist. Ruthless is the key word here – everyone is ruthless. It’s like a drinking game. The characters are flat, and there isn’t anyone you can really feel emotionally invested in. And I’ve said this before, but give me a villain I want to defeat soundly. The terrorists and agents in this story just depressed me. I didn’t get the sense anyone was better off, or anything was much accomplished here – all the work and killing people just adds fuel to the fire of this conflict. I can’t get behind that. And knowing Gabriel is just going to get pulled out of retirement again to fight some more of the same old baddies was just anti-climactic. When I finished this I thought huh, the hero didn’t do anything heroic and he did not solve the bad guy problem. The good action was done by another. Ok, but that kind of let me down - not much hero development here.

At the Foot of the Story Tree, has been published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com). bn.comAri Shamron trained Gabriel to become one of the world's best intelligence operatives. In the process, Gabriel became Shamron's best and most prized student and the two ended up working closely togetherfor many years. Such a relationship necessarily draws its strength from the bonds of trust and loyalty that are established, but at the same time of course their relationship is not immune to deception, given their environment. How does Shamron deceive Gabriel and vice versa, and how do their deceptions affect their relationship, both professional and personal? What can one say about their relationship by the novel's end? Research by the Vatican following the deadly event reveals that the very council which was established with the goal of improving relations between Catholics and Muslims was actually serving as an operation for insider terrorism. Blame of the disastrous happenings at the worship ceremony is placed on a powerful network of terrorists. Their response is to bomb Ari Shamron’s car, a character that has served as Gabriel’s friend since the beginning of the series.