Rating: 
Summary: "Where wood is chopped, splinters must fall."
Review: The death camps of the Reich provide the underpinnings of this intense and fast-paced novel in which the author draws new attention to the collusion of governments and institutions in protecting Nazi war criminals into the present day. Gabriel Allon, the main character, is working peacefully as a fine art restorer in Venice when he is suddenly summoned by his mentor in the Israeli secret service to investigate the bombing of the Vienna Office of Wartime Claims and Inquiries. Although the Austrian government has declared the bombing to be the work of an Islamic terrorist group, Allon believes it is more likely the result of current anti-Semitism within Austria. An extremely conservative candidate for Chancellor is given a high likelihood of winning the coming election and, the author points out, bringing the philosophy of the Reich into the twenty-first century.As Allon searches for the perpetrators, the action careens from Vienna to Israel, Italy, Argentina, the US, and back to Vienna, and involves complex political, financial, and national security issues affecting a number of countries. Always, the present is tied to the history of the Reich. Erich Radek, a former Nazi, is still alive and active in Vienna, his war-time obliteration of the graves and bodies at Polish death camps so total that a new generation of Austrians is now asking, "Where is the evidence that the Holocaust ever happened?" Konrad Becker, a Zurich banker, has a mysterious client with over two billion dollars in assets; a Catholic bishop who helped war criminals escape is still connected to governments and police; successive governments in Argentina have provided aid to war criminals since the time of Peron; and American CIA agents have protected some war criminals during the Cold War. As Allon narrows the search to one well-protected man, the violence reaches a crescendo. Silva's journalistic style is perfectly suited to his subject matter. He presents information efficiently and without preamble, in short sentences which move the action along quickly. Incorporating historical facts within his fictional framework, he provides testimonies from the Holocaust library at Yad Vashem, evidence from Auschwitz and Treblinka, and an account of Adolf Eichmann's capture to elevate the fiction, give it credence, and pack an emotional wallop. Within this exciting chase to apprehend the murderer, Silva develops his thematic goal of bringing continuing injustice to light, and few readers will fail to be moved by his zeal and the power of his historical details. This is a strong novel which transcends the usual "thriller" designation because of its reliance on verifiable evidence. Mary Whipple
Rating: 
Summary: stupid and offensive, but there is some action there
Review: This is not a complete loss, there are some well written scenes, there is a thrill and there is an intrigue.
But, practically everybody acts stupid and there is a feeling the most of the figures are simply cut out from the cardboard. And the biggest problem is that I found some parts of Holocaust-related line very offensive to the memory of my great grandfather and others who were killed.
Rating: 
Summary: Not one of my favorites
Review: This is the first time that I have read this author, and I think that it will be the last...this book for the most part was very boring and I could not wait to finish the thing..most of the words that he uses in this book are very hard to pronounce, and he does not give a lot of feedback to his characters, this is something that would be very helpful to someone, such as myself that has never read his books. I did not feel compelled to care about these characters in this book in the least....some action, but very little....I do not care to read another of this authors books.....if you must read, I suggest you look for earlier works, so that you are not left out in the cold as to who these ppl are in the book!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant and Gripping
Review: Typical of the writing of author Daniel Silva, A DEATH IN VIENNA is a work of fact-based fiction based on his brilliant and thorough research. This third book of a trilogy again features an Italian art restorer who actually is an undercover Israeli intelligence agent. The agent is brought in to solve the mystery of, yes, A DEATH IN VIENNA. Although the death occurs contemporaneously, the seeds of this murder were planted during World War II, in the Auschwitz concentration camp. As always, Silva has constructed a story that is gripping, compelling his readers to turn every page with bated breath. In the course of solving the murder, the protagonist has to delve deep into the history of the Nazis and the way that they treated their victims. The dead man and the person who ordered his assassination turn out to have crossed paths during the War; it is up to the Israeli agent to determine the answers as to how, where and why. The journey that these questions take him on reveal, layer by layer, many facts still largely unknown about the Nazi extermination machinery. Author Silva has said that this will be the last book in the series. I am sorry that this is his plan as, based on his own extensive research, I suspect that he has other important tales to share.
Rating:
Summary: Another page turner, and a ggod one
Review: Up front, I admit that I like the books of Daniel Silva. They are interesting, well written and very well plotted. Many of the characters are original and well formed as well. While this book replows the old ground of the Holocaust one more time, chasing after an eighty year old mass murderer this time, it does it well. Art restorer and sometime assassin Gabriel Allon is once more forced into the dark business of espionage and confronts both his own and his Mother's nemesis in this tale. Like the other books by Mr. Silva this one strains credulity from time to time, but good writing in this genre often needs a suspension of disbelief, sometimes a substantial one. That Mr. Silva's book, A Death In Vienna, requires more than one was neither important nor off putting for me. It is just a fact. The plot other than this is tightly constructed, and you do get caught up in its twists and turns. While I was reading this book I also read a very provocative review of the new Mel Gibson movie, the Passion of Christ, and several of the points the author of that review made could also be said with profit about this book. As a non-Christian that reviewer had difficulty getting past the extreme violence of the Passion of Christ and embracing it as a story of love and redemption. Simply stated the gore of the Passion got in the way of the message and he did not have the cultural heritage to see it as anything other than gore. The Lamb of God is horrifically killed and the Resurrection did not compensate for that fact for him, nor did it make it any easier to digest what he had seen. Similarly, the massive, institutionalized and individual cruelty of the Holocaust is something that cannot be sipped a little at a time. It is a deluge of bestiality of man to man that is hard to swallow the first time you read about it, and it does not get any easier to take with repetition. If anything each telling becomes more and more unnerving as real people, people just like your and my neighbor do things to people that are as disgusting as they are true. There is no answer here of how a civilized people could have done such a thing. I do not think that there ever will be such an answer. But I think that the story resonates differently if you are a Jew. The telling of the story of the Holocaust has become, not an act of contrition, but an act of solemn witness. It is not redemption that is desired, but simple recognition of the horror that lies within civilized man, a remembrance of the people that endured that horror, and a warning to everyone - Since we do not understand the Holocaust we cannot ever be certain that we can prevent it from coming again. In this book at least, a civilized man can confront and fight evil without descending into that evil himself. Even though Gabriel Allon is, and probably will be again an assassin, a killer of men. He is not a murderer. That is a vital difference between Allon and the Nazi in the book. It is not the act that makes the man, it is the choice and the reason for that choice that either gives or withholds meaning for the act. Thus, though there is a profound difference between hunting down and killing the murderers of the Israeli Olympic athletes and the trial of Adolph Eichman, both are moral acts for reasons explained in the fiction of this book. On the other hand, there is no explanation possible for the Holocaust, no explanation for the original participation in it nor for the current climate of denial of it. Silva does a service to us all, by standing witness. A small point perhaps, a cartridge is a bullet and a propellant in a single package that can be loaded into a gun and fired. Silva uses this word once when he means a magazine that holds multiple cartridges. It is a small point, but one an expert assassin should know. Read the book, you will like it and it will make you think.
Rating:
Summary: The best overall
Review: Well researched and written like McCrae's BARK OF THE DOGWOOD (though a totally different subject!) and well plotted and paced like Baldacci's SPLIT SECOND, A DEATH IN VIENNA is a superb read on so many levels. My first reaction to this book was, "The Holocaust and the Nazi thing has been done to death," but once into the book I realized that I was reading something fresh and new, and above all, exciting. Riveting and complex, this is not a tale for the faint-of-heart. Also recommended: McCrae's Bark of the Dogwood and The Devil in the White City
Rating:
Summary: Death In Vienna, and a lot of other places too........
Review: Well, I thought this was such a great book, that after reading it, started getting all of Silva's other ones and am presently on his 3rd book. I can't wait to read them all. This is an incredible research effort on his part and so far I don't have a favorite, they've all been great.
Rating: 
Summary: High quality thriller.
Review: When a bomb explodes in the Vienna Wartime Claims and Inquiry Office, killing Eli Lavon, an elderly Jewish man who investigated crimes relating to the Holocaust, Israeli intelligence dispatches Gabriel Allon to Austria to investigate. Allon's appearance in Vienna stirs up trouble as old enemies seek revenge, secrets are uncovered and unholy alliances are revealed. A Death in Vienna is simultaneously the fourth Gabriel Allon book and the third installment in a trilogy which, in Silva's words, "completes a cycle of three novels dealing with the unfinished business of the Holocaust." Exhibiting the considerable writing skills he displayed in the first two novels of the series, The English Assassin and The Confessor, Silva admittedly opts for the most obvious of villains, the Nazis. Yet, by making Allon's mission personal (his discovery of his mother's writings about her participation in the January 1945 death march from Birkneau is a key turning point in the novel) and by linking the book's action to current events (i.e. the current political scene in Austria), he renders a familiar premise fresh and emotionally engaging. A fascinating protagonist, Allon's talents for tradecraft and assassination provide a potent contrast to his preferred work as an art restorer. Of course, a hero needs worthy opponents, which Silva provides in the assassin known as The Clockmaker, and in former Sturmbannfuehrer Erich Radek. Add in a well -drawn cast of supporting characters, and Silva's ability to painlessly relate relevant history amid the action, and you have a well-balanced thriller, an effort that will leave fans clamoring for additional adventures of Gabriel Allon and friends.
Rating:
Summary: Very saisfying end to this exciting trilogy
Review: When he is not restoring art, Israeli Gabriel Allon works as an espionage agent for his country. He is sent to Vienna to investigate the bombing of the Wartime Claims and Inquiries Bureau run by Eli Lavon. Gabriel learns that Eli was trying to prove that wealthy businessman Ludwig Vogel was an SS officer at Auschwitz. Vogel is spending millions to get the Austrian National Party candidate elected as chancellor. When Gabriel is kicked out of Austria, he travels to Israel and with the information he accumulated. People working on the Holocaust believe that Vogel is actually Erich Radek, a monster responsible for the killings of thousands of Jews. Gabriel recognizes a picture of Radek because he is in one of his mother's paintings. He did something terrible to her as they were evacuating Auschwitz in 1945 and for Gabriel this case has become very personal. An organization that has international tentacles wants Gabriel to stop investigating and they hire the infamous hitman the Clockmaker to kill him before he exposes secrets that the group wants to stay buried. A DEATH TO VIENNA is an exciting espionage thriller that will appeal to fans of John de Carre, Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler. The action is non-stop but the author does not neglect his characters that have a depth rarely seen in a work of this type. Drawing on facts, Daniel Silva portrays a world that would rather forget about the Holocaust or just as bad, believe it never happened. Readers will adore the troubled and vulnerable protagonist who fights in an invisible war against his country's enemies. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: Gabe Allon v.Jack Ryan?
Review: Where are all the Gabriel Allon movies from Hollywood??? Oh yes, film industry Jews would rather churn out mind rotting and sexually degrading films and television shows. They certainly don't want to attract undue attention to themselves by offering the world an alternative to the Ameri-Anglo character, Jack Ryan. Daniel Silva deserves credit and recognition for writing stories that are so believable (except for the one where Il Papa addresses the Rome synagogue). Come on Hollywood! The whole world is choking on your politically correct spew; give us something whorthwhile, give us Gabe Allon.
| 
