From a Google Image Search – Daniel Silva

Daniel Silva has published a new book called An Inside Job. His key character is Gabriel Allon, a retired head of Israeli intelligence. He is also a talented artist who restores Renaissance Italian artworks, often frescos in cathedrals. He has a connection to the Pope and knows his way around the Vatican because he has worked on restorations there. He lives with his wife Chiara and their precocious twins in Venice.

Gabriel is almost finished with his current restoration project, a project requiring scaffolding and spotlights with a canvas curtain to separate him from tourists. When he spots an anomaly in Venice waters one day, the police investigate and pull the body of a young woman from the harbor.

This young woman has a connection to the Vatican, so we leave the rather lighthearted watery environs of Venice and find ourselves once again immersed in the Byzantine politics that surround, but do not implicate, the Pope. This time the object of contention is the discovery of a possible new painting by Leonardo da Vinci. It’s all about money after that and involves a shadowy mafia-style group that skims money from the Catholic Church and is determined to keep these activities secret.

Facing possible murder, Allon finds the evidence to hold the perpetrators accountable along with the help of some of our favorite old members of the Allon team. In the end we find ourselves back having ice cream with Chiara and the twins in Venice. All-in-all a very satisfying installment, rumored to be based in reality, and, indeed, An Inside Job á la Daniel Silva.