Daniel Silva - Prince of Fire

Table of Contents

A passionate, intelligently crafted entry that cements the series place among todays top spy fiction. The structure is classic. Publishers Weekly (starred review)

[A] rare combination of fine characters, compelling writing, and suspenseful plotting that will reach out and grab readers. Silva moves the story along quickly, creating a frightening network of spies and counterspies. [His] plotting is ingenious and clear. Silva handles the twists and turns so well its a waste of time to try to guess where its going. It goes places readers cant predict and then goes further. Detroit Free Press

Daniel Silva... handles his theme of revengeand its effect on those it touchesadroitly but without encroaching on the pure pleasure of reading a first-rate thriller.

Allon puts together a Mission: Impossible team of Israelis to pursue the scion of a family dynasty of Palestinian militants. But nothing is easy or uncomplicated in spy thrillers. Allon and his buds are sucked into an intricate web of deceit and double cross. Not to mention a lot of carnage. USA Today

Silva keeps getting better. Library Journal

[A] world-class practitioner of spy fiction... Silva is a skillfulnovelist who does justice to the often heartbreaking materialwithout exploiting it. The Washington Post Book World

Silvas mastered the art of weaving provocative narrative, espionage, and foreign intrigue. Silvas gift is to pressure the reader to read on, to absorb unspeakable truths, and to glimpse a James Bond-less espionage lifestyle. Life is shaken constantly, never stirred. Chicago Sun-Times

A masterful and compelling tale of evil, treachery, and revenge, again showing why hes at the top of thriller writers. A Death in Vienna goes to the top of the list of the years best. Rocky Mountain News

"Complex, compelling international espionage in the John le Carr vein. The News-Press (Fort Myers, FL)

Cool brilliance. Chicago Tribune

Provocative and deeply satisfying... stars one of the most intriguing protagonists in the genre.... A Death in Vienna isnt just a masterfully constructed tale of memory and revenge. It demonstrates that thrillers can be more than entertainment. The Miami Herald

A thriller thats not content to be just a thriller, as it delves into issues involving the Holocaust and its perpetrators and survivors. The Kansas City Star

Unfailingly entertaining... gripping [and] significant.

A Death in Vienna completes Silvas increasingly powerful trilogy about the unfinished business of the Holocaust.... The ending is haunting. The Orlando Sentinel

Silvas writing is perfect: just enough description to be preciseand an undercurrent of tension that drives the action. As always, Allons cause is justice, regardless of the means, and we cant help but rally behind him.

Silvas intricate plot takes Allon across much of the globe, from Argentina to Poland, from Vienna to the Vatican.... Silva writes with care and skill. He has a knack for local color, and Allon, his main character, is refreshingly humanworld-weary,given to self-doubt, and seemingly always wrestling with an inner demon of some sort. St. Louis Post-Dispatch

An exciting and complex novel. Library Journal

[A] superbly crafted narrative of espionage and foreign intrigue. Action and suspense abound, but this is serious fictionwith a serious purpose. Silva keeps the pressure on the reader as well as his characters as there are important lessons to be learned and vital history to be remembered.

Silva writes le Carr-style spy novels in which the action, despite careening across cities and continents, retains knife-edge-sharp suspense.... This finely wrought thriller reads like an exquisitely suspenseful chess game. Booklist

"Silva builds tension with breathtaking double and triple turns of plot. People

"Each plot-twisting segment is marked by almost unbearabletension.... Silvas unsmiling prose urges you on like a silencer poking at the small of your back.

In the style of authors like Frederick Forsyth and Ken Follett. New York Law Journal

At the forefront of his generation of foreign intrigue specialists. Publishers Weekly (starred review)

A terrific thriller... one of the best-drawn fictional assassins since The Day of the Jackal.The San Francisco Examiner

A strong, driving pace. Chicago Tribune

[A] fast-moving bang-bang thriller.

A thrill-a-minute surefire bestseller. Kirkus Reviews

ALSO BY DANIEL SILVA

ANCIENT JEWISH PROVERB

PART ONE

THE DOSSIER

There had been warning signsthe Shabbat bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that left eighty-seven people dead; the bombing of an Istanbul synagogue, precisely one year later, that killed another twenty-eightbut Rome would be his coming-out party, and Rome would be the place where he left his calling card.

Afterward, within the corridors and executive suites of Israels vaunted intelligence service, there was considerableand sometimes belligerent debate over the time and place of the conspiracys genesis. Lev Ahroni, the ever-cautious director of the service, would claim that the plot was hatched not long after the Israeli army knocked down Arafats headquarters in Ramallah and stole his secret files. Ari Shamron, the legendary Israeli master spy, would find this almost laughable, though Shamron often disagreed with Lev simply as a matter of sport. Only Shamron, who had fought with the Palmach during the War of Independence and who tended to view the conflict as a continuum, understood intuitively that the outrage in Rome had been inspired by deeds dating back more than a half century. Eventually, evidence would prove both Lev and Shamron correct. In the meantime, in order to achieve peaceful working conditions, they agreed on a new starting point: the day a certain Monsieur Jean-Lucarrived in the hills of Lazio and settled himself in a rather handsome eighteenth-century villa on the shore of Lake Bracciano.

As for the exact date and time of his arrival, there was no doubt. The owner of the villa, a dubious Belgian aristocratcalled Monsieur Laval, said the tenant appeared at two-thirty in the afternoon on the final Friday of January.The courteous but intense young Israeli who called on Monsieur Laval at his home in Brussels wondered how it was possible to recall the date so clearly. The Belgianproduced his lavish leather-bound personal calendar and pointed to the date in question. There, penciled on the line designated for two-thirty p.m., were the words: