Book Review: The Rembrandt Affair by Daniel Silva

 Thanks to Carl Brookins for sharing another review.....


The Rembrandt Affair
By Daniel Silva
ISBN: 978-0-399-15658-8
Published by Putnam, 2010

Daniel Silva is an experienced best-selling author who deserves his place on the NY Times list.  His latest novel is a fascinating blend of lust, international espionage, art theft and sale, and murder. It is well-written, well-paced and almost insidiously compelling.

It is also long.

Silva has peopled his thriller with a remarkable cast of characters, including a towering Swiss philanthropist, a raffish cast of thieves and murderers who are on the side of the angels, a master logician who is also a stone killer, an art restorer of great skill and several others of questionable yet important morals. Over all hangs the image of one of the greatest of European artists, Dutch painter Rembrandt von Rijin.  He lived and prospered during the golden era of Dutch painting and died in 1669.  His paintings are worth millions.

When a small portrait of a young woman mysteriously appears in the art world, knowing viewers immediately recognize it as the work of the great Dutch Master.  But knowing and proving are quite different things.  In the
art world, provenance is everything.  Where has this painting been for perhaps hundreds of years?

Answering that all-important question brings together a London art dealer and master restorer and art expert, and master spy, Gabriel Allon.  That connection sets off a wild chase though high and low social levels of Britain and Europe in a taut novel fraught with unexpected turns, unusual characters and sometimes off-the-wall events.

It all adds up to a dandy novel that will satisfy the most discriminating thriller readers.

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Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com, www.agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

Book Review

Random Victim
By Michael A. Black
ISBN: 978-0-8439-5986-4
Pub: Leisure Books, pb, 323 pages,
April, 2008

How did I miss this one when it first came out? I know the author, been following the man’s writing career. He gave me a copy of this book. Still, I only recently got around to reading it. And discovered to my chagrin what I’ve been missing. Delayed a really fine read. Here is Chicago, in all its grit and insouciance, its rhythm and its nasty side.

Chicago is part of Cook County, and they have a sheriff, a law enforcement presence, and all the problems an urban county can absorb. Comes now one Sergeant Francisco Leal, back after a drug bust gone bad, resulting in a grievous wound to his person. Leal, your basic resentful cynic, doesn’t enjoy busting bad guys to see them get off too lightly, and he isn’t always quiet about his feelings, even in front of the judge. Thus, “the Dark Gable Incident,” which gave Leal a certain cache, positive in some circles, but negative in many others.

We get a really good look at the simmering anger that lies under Leal’s professional demeanor and now he has a new assignment. Along with two young, inexperienced detectives and another sergeant, Leal is assigned to a politically sensitive case that is so cold, the detective’s fingers get numb just paging through the files.

Almost a year previously a major player, a judge Miriam Walker, went missing, was found dead some time later, and there were no arrests, no apparent motive, no leads.. A random victim, possibly of a carjacking? A very cold case. Now, elections are coming and the Sheriff is being beaten up over this still unsolved case. A team is assembled in an obvious political ploy, to re-examine the case and Leal is second in command, due primarily to his seniority. The team assembles with the initial understanding that there’s almost no upside to the situation.

The characters are precisely drawn, their actions methodical and deliberate and logical. The action and the tension are low-keyed for a long time, but the writing is so fine, I was drawn inexorably to page after page until the climax exploded off the page. This is one fine police procedural. Ultimately we learn that the assumption of randomness is not the truth.

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Reviewed by Carl Brookins


Carl Brookins
carlbrookins@comcast.com
www.carlbrookins.com
http://agora2.blogspot.com/
Case of the Greedy Lawyers, Bloody Halls, Devils Island