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Portrait of an Unknown Woman
In a spellbinding new masterpiece by #1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva, Gabriel Allon undertakes a high-stakes search for the greatest art forger who ever lived
Legendary spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon has at long last severed ties with Israeli intelligence and settled quietly in Venice, the only place where he has ever truly known peace. His beautiful wife, Chiara, has taken over the day-to-day management of the Tiepolo Restoration Company, and their two young children are discreetly enrolled in a neighborhood scuola elementare. For his part, Gabriel spends his days wandering the streets and canals of the watery city, bidding farewell to the demons of his tragic, violent past.
But when the eccentric London art dealer Julian Isherwood asks Gabriel to investigate the circumstances surrounding the rediscovery and lucrative sale of a centuries-old painting, he is drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse where nothing is as it seems.
Gabriel soon discovers that the work in question, a portrait of an unidentified woman attributed to Sir Anthony van Dyck, is almost certainly a fiendishly clever fake. To find the mysterious figure who painted it—and uncover a multibillion-dollar fraud at the pinnacle of the art world—Gabriel conceives one of the most elaborate deceptions of his career. If it is to succeed, he must become the very mirror image of the man he seeks: the greatest art forger the world has ever known.
Stylish, sophisticated, and ingeniously plotted, Portrait of an Unknown Woman is a wildly entertaining journey through the dark side of the art world—a place where unscrupulous dealers routinely deceive their customers and deep-pocketed investors treat great paintings as though they were just another asset class to be bought and sold at a profit. From its elegant opening to the shocking twists of its climax, the novel is a tour de force of storytelling and one of the finest pieces of heist fiction ever written. And it is still more proof that, when it comes to international intrigue and suspense, Daniel Silva has no equal.
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Reviews
One of the best of his works
By Golden grunt
Author jumps right into political insults and casts the protagonist as proudly “woke.” The obvious disconnect between life as Middle East assassin and naive Western social fads is sadly lost on this author. I read to escape political division, so I wish I could get my money back on this one.
By briancaseyATW
Creative storybrelling by Daniel Silva. I would read everything he writes.
By Scotthendler
Silva takes us on a journey of master forgeries and a greedy leader of a Ponzi scheme with Gabriel Allon on their tail. Allon produces many twists and turns in this story. He introduces readers to the underworld of art theft, forged art works suddenly appearing attributed to old world masters, and the Ponzi scheme. Allon and his protégé’s spring traps to bring down the leader of the Ponzi scheme and serve as a lesson to investors and the art world that, in the long run, master artworks are not good investments.
By mdsdoc
As others have written in the reviews, the author’s left leaning politics really were unnecessary. Although upon completing the book and seeing Jeff Zucker (Former CNN President) listed as the first name in the friends acknowledgment section, one can hardly be surprised given the circles the author runs in.
By RiderAce