The Defector

By Daniel Silva (Penguin Group NZ, Michael Joseph; RRP $37)

Daniel Silva's latest thriller is the ninth featuring Israeli super-spy Gabriel Allon.

While the multilingual assassin is enjoying part two of his honeymoon with new Italian wife Chiara in his Umbrian villa, and restoring a priceless artwork for the Vatican (the Pope is a friend), he receives shocking news. Colonel Grigori Bulganov, the defector and former Russian spy who had saved Allon's life, has suddenly vanished in London.

The Brits, convinced all along that Bulganov was a double agent, believe he has re-defected and returned home to a hero's welcome. Allon knows better. What follows is a convoluted tale as the sleuth and his hand-picked team, deployed in various cinematic European locales on an unlimited budget, play cat-and-mouse with the deadly Russian arms dealer-cum-megalomaniac Ivan Kharkov.

Despite or perhaps because of numerous sub-plots and the author's determination to cover "timely issues", it's fair to say that my pulse rate didn't rise until page 297. After that it see-sawed, dropping noticeably at the so-called "heart-stopping climax in the snowbound birch forests of Russia".

Kharkov, naturally, is still on the loose. In masterful hands the spy novel is a glorious thing, both complex and subtle; its denizens inhabit a twilit world of bluff and double-bluff as well as boredom and violence. Silva has all-too-obviously done the research, but his characters come straight from Central Casting and their wooden dialogue makes you laugh out loud.

John Le Carre he ain't. Well, you can't argue with the New York Times bestseller list. Maybe his earlier thrillers really thrilled, but in my book this "searing tale of love, vengeance and courage" is strictly for diehard fans.

- © Fairfax NZ News