The Other Woman by Daniel Silva

 This has been stting on my shelves for a few years waiting for me to read the rest of the series. I've loved all of Silva's books about the wonderful Israeli art restorer, spy and assassin Gabriel Allon, although they can be rather gruesome at times, but I enjoyed this the most! The Other Woman features a mysterious woman in a Spanish villa working on her memoirs, a Russian defector and a dangerous mole who must be rooted out. There are many red herrings, but Allon and his remarkable team slowly get to the bottom of it as their detective work takes them to many beautiful settings, and a historical mystery. In this book, the sins of the fathers cast their malevolent forces on the present day.

I can't really say why this is my favourite without giving the game away, unfortunately. However, even if you haven't read the previous novels, if you like exciting spy fiction, Silva is one of the best with his finely-drawn characters, elegant writing, meticulous research and stunning settings. These books really should be made into films!

It's especially interesting how Silva manages to make Allon such an amazing and lovely character, even though he is an assassin. The combination of art restorer with assassin is certainly strange, so its remarkable how Silva makes him so sympathetic. Allon's beautiful wife, fellow spy Chiara, helps here!

The world could do with Gabriel Allon now. Such a pity he's a fictional character!

I read this for Rose City Reader's TBR 24  in '24 Challenge.