Jeet Jhaveri &
The Unlikely Spy by Daniel Silva

This is the forward to this book: "In August 2018, I commenced work on a novel about a crusading young Arab prince who wanted to modernize his religiously intolerant country and bring sweeping change to the Middle East and the broader Islamic world. I set aside that manuscript two months later, however, when the model for that character, Mohammad bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, was implicated in the brutal murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident and columnist for the Washington Post. Elements of 'The New Girl' are quite obviously inspired by events surrounding Khashoggi's death. The rest occur only in the imaginary world inhabited by Gabriel Allon, and his enemies." That is correct -- and it was the most interesting part of the first half of "The New Girl". The above items occurred to the Saudi character, who becomes a jerk, a party boy and is shunned by the rest of the world. Except, when the character has a personal crisis and comes to Allon for help. An Arab asking an Israeli for help? A lot of others around Allon questioned his decision. The first half of the book is very un-Allon (and very un-Silva) like. Silva always includes items in his books that inform you about the people or the countries involved. I'm not greatly knowledgeable about the Middle East, but there really wasn't much provided from which to learn. And usually when Allon is presented with such a crisis, he goes after the potential perpetrators like a rabid dog, guns blazing. But he spends this portion of the book attempting to be a mentor to a young man that won't hear anything from Allon if it doesn't end his crisis in a positive manner. As I was falling asleep at the mid-point of the book, the personal crisis comes to a head and a tragic ending occurs to halt the crisis for the Saudi -- an ending that makes a connection with Allon's past. It wouldn't bind them as best buds forever, but it provides an increased level of closeness between the two characters. The next 20 percent of the book sets up the usual stellar ending of a Silva book in the final 30 percent. I have never had such a wide disparity of feelings of a Silva book. It usually starts strong, jumping to parts known and unknown, increasing in intensity into a great ending. It started out slow and remained slow (except for the end of the personal crisis) for over 50 percent of the book. I wanted to give this a 4 -- almost out of habit -- but it wouldn't be honest. I truly hope this was a hiccup for Silva when real life interrupted his writing for the book. I hope you like the book. But if you have read the other 18 Allon novels ..... I told you so.

I was quite skeptical about reading this book because of its storyline and the real life person on whom it is based. But I’m also a huge fan of the series, so I decided to give it a try. I was very glad to read the author’s clarification in the foreword and that surely made me a little excited to read. While this was a very fast paced read and I finished it in just a few hours, I won’t say this is one of his finer stories. It was quite engaging even if not realistic for almost the first half, but the latter half which features the main operation spearheaded by Gabriel was too unbelievable for even an entertaining spy thriller. I also hated that the “character” whom I don’t want to talk about was almost getting a redemption arc (because reality is much darker and messy). So I was prepared to end the book on a disappointing note but I did not see the last line coming. I don’t think I’ve ever waited for a next book so much before, but I just want to know what the hell happened. I guess I just don’t have much to say about this book. If you’ve read the previous 18 books of Gabriel’s adventures, then you shouldn’t give this a miss. It doesn’t really work well as a stand-alone for new readers though - you definitely need to know the events that occur in the previous installment The Other Woman to understand this book better. I’m also not really convinced that the use of major horrifying events from around the world worked for the plot of this novel. I know I’ll be continuing the series but I won’t ever be revisiting this one.