385 reviews for:

The Kill Artist

Daniel Silva

3.77 AVERAGE


Loved this. Great spy story focusing as much on tradecraft and the actual espionage than a reliance on action-packed shooter stories. Can't wait to move on in the series.

Revisões caseirinhas deste e de muitos outros livros em www.dosnossoslivros.blogspot.com


Não posso dizer que tenha gostado tanto deste livro como do anterior que li de Daniel Silva. Na verdade, achei este - o primeiro livro da série com Gabriel Allon no papel principal - um pouco aborrecido. Resolvi lê-lo para poder começar a série do princípio uma série que me estava a interessar para leituras esporádicas. Conheci Gabriel de início (reformado do Departamento, determinado em não voltar... de novo, embora aqui fosse original), Ari Shamron, tentando novamente recrutar o seu aprendiz favorito, Julian Isherwood, novamente manietado para fazer chegar a Gabriel as intenções do Departamento. Claro que tudo isto era original no início da série, mas visto que li o décimo livro e reconheci tudo isto de lá, a questão que se coloca é se vai ser sempre assim, ou se tive azar e li os dois livros mais próximos entre si nestes pormenores.
A história é diferente, no entanto. Nesta, Gabriel Allon procura fazer desaparecer um dos terroristas palestinianos mais procurados, Tariq, fazendo uso das técnicas e subterfúgios inerentes à sua actividade de espião. Obviamente há uma certa dose de lições sobre as permanentes guerras entre palestianos e israelitas, mas como aconteceu com O Caso Rembrandt, a leitura é fluida e mantém o leitor interessado.
Para quem, como eu, quiser ter uma série de thrillers de espionagem à mão para alturas mais relaxadas, bem, podem contar com Gabriel Allon.

Good book. I'd call it a great book if the 'f' word had been left out.

*4,5 stars
dark mysterious fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Yes
Diverse cast of characters: No
Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

This first book in the Gabriel Allon series is a solid beginning to the best-selling series of international espionage books. I don’t recall reading a spy novel centered on the Israeli intelligence service before so was intrigued. That, combined with the protagonist being a fine art restorer that is called back to duty to assassinate an internationally known terrorist was enough for me to give this book a try.

I had read two previous novels by Daniel Silva (the two Michael Osbourne books) and enjoyed them so felt comfortable giving this series a spin. But I must say this one was a notch better than those two earlier works. I really like Silva’s style, his story-telling technique and appreciate the nuances of his characters. I was happy to see this wasn’t a completely straight-forward spy novel and, in fact, Gabriel Allon himself doesn’t play much of a role in the first quarter of the book. Even through the rest of the book, it’s more about his co-agent, French super-model Jacqueline Delacroix and Gabriel’s boss, Mossad director, Ari Shamron. (Actually the name “Mossad” is never used but instead referred to as the “the Office”. Of course we all know that internally in the Israeli intelligence community Mossad is referred to as HaMisrad, which literally translates into English as, “the Office”. Er…we do all know that, right?)

Overall, I liked the characters, the plot, the pacing, and the settings. Gabriel is an intriguing character with an interesting history that will no doubt be fleshed out over the series. There were a few nice surprises along the way, including a nice one at the end that I did not see coming. A nice read and darn it, I now have yet another series to catch up on.
adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven: Plot
Strong character development: No
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

Zionist plot. No thank you. 

First read March 2013; re-read August 2015
dark emotional tense slow-paced
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes