A Death in Vienna

A bomb goes off in Vienna. Art restorer and spy Gabriel Allon, is sent in to see what happened to his friend who happens to hunt down items stolen from the Jews in World War II. What he finds is a complicated web of lies and deceptions that will take him around the world in Daniel Silva's A Death in Vienna.

Silva writes an exciting book that takes readers on a whirl of four continents. Gabriel is a killer, but as he becomes more entangled in the plot, he finds himself providing revenge for those who were killed in the gas chambers. And Silva makes him a complicated Renaissance man. We want to discover more about the contradictions in this artist, who has been trained to kill. We learn more about his personal background and his personal ties to this case.

Silva also touches on the aftermath of the war. Which lower level Nazis escaped? And how did they do it? Via the Americans, via Rome, via Argentina? Who helped the murders along the way - to rebuild their life and not suffer retribution for their sins? Silva has done his research well and provides the reader with enough details to want to learn more about the post war period. This period of history was not black and white - there is a whole lot of gray.

A fine read and a good thriller. I'm looking forward to reading more books in the series.

Leslie Charteris' The Saint

The Saint in Europe is one of the many Simon Templer mysteries written by Leslie Charteris. We find our debonair thief lounging in the watering holes of Europe and looking at jewelry along the way. How can you dislike such a smooth operator?

"For the saga of any adventurer take this: an idea, a scheme, action, danger, escape, and perhaps a surprise somewhere. Repeat indefinitely, with irregular interludes of quiet. Flavor it with the eternal discontent of unattainable horizons, and the everlasting content of an eagle's freedom. That had been Simon Templar's life since the day when he was first nicknamed the Saint..."

This book features seven short stories. In them he rescues the damsel, discovers the murderer, helps the police and does some thieving on the side. What more could you ask out of life?

A fun read. For those classic puzzle mystery fans.