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'The English Assassin' by Daniel Silva

Riveting 'Assassin' targets Switzerland's WWII stance

Sunday, April 21, 2002

By Karen Carlin, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

	The English Assassin By Daniel Silva Putnam $25.95

This new thriller not only marks the return of art restorer/Israeli spy Gabriel Allon but also another go-around for Daniel Silva on the best-seller list.

That’s no surprise -- Silva has produced yet another tightly written and engaging tale of flawed heroes, spies, history lessons and the righting of injustices.

Introduced in “The Kill Artist,” Gabriel prefers to make his living resurrecting masterpieces, but his spirit is in need of restoration as well.

Still trying to recover from losing his wife and son to a car bomb in Vienna set by a Palestinian assassin, he also grapples with his role in clandestine service to Israeli intelligence boss Ari Shamron.

Through his art dealer contact, Gabriel is hired to clean an Old Master belonging to Augustus Rolfe, a prominent Swiss banker. When he arrives in Rolfe’s Zurich home, he finds his body in a pool of blood. He’s soon arrested in the case.

After extricating Gabriel from the police, Shamron explains why he was sent to Zurich: Rolfe wanted to provide information about valuable paintings taken from Jews by the Nazis during the war and kept in Switzerland’s bank vaults.

Gabriel plunges into solving the mystery and soon finds himself in more danger as he uncovers the tale of Switzerland’s ill-gotten gains from World War II. He’s hampered by the country’s “let’s not relive the pains of the past” mentality.

One Swiss group wants to keep the truth buried so much that it engages the services of a master assassin known through most of the book only as “the Englishman.”

Gabriel’s quest takes him across Europe, including a painful revisit to Vienna, but his gains are stopped by someone who seems to know his every move.

Silva unearths a lot of sad history in this tale and shows how actions from 60 years ago still reverberate today. He takes Switzerland to task for officially pronouncing itself neutral in the war while making a profit from Jewish riches. When a member of Switzerland’s internal security service says he’s sick of his country being dragged through the mud by foreigners, Gabriel replies:

“Your country ... turned the dental gold and wedding rings of the Jewish people into hard currency. Thousands of terrified Jews placed their life savings in your banks on the way to the death chambers of Auschwitz and Sobibor, and then those same banks kept the money instead of handing it over to their rightful heirs.”

As in his previous thrillers, Silva creates a cast of fascinating characters, many of whom are from “The Kill Artist.” The tormented Gabriel, a killer himself, comes off as a likable and sympathetic hero. And some villains here show flashes of humanity in surprising plot twists.

The reader is never sure if the restorer will succeed in reversing Augustus Rolfe’s past sins or who will provide help in his mission.

The plot, the intrigue, the people and the relevancy add up to a satisfying ending that comes all too quickly.