Rating: 
Summary: Top Rate Thriller
Review: Daniel Silva weaves a taught tale of suspense and international intrigue with this one. The story moves between England, Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, Spain; there's even a brief mention of Tibet, though nobody is really there and the mention of it is more of an insiders joke to the characters. Silva's chief talent is describing the sites, sounds, and smells of the European landscape and its people. He also has a very readable way of incorporating history into his plotline. A lot of writers (e.g. Clancy) tend to use description as a means of filling pages. Silva takes his descriptives to heights that fill the reader with a flavor of the place. I haven't been to the places in the Silva's novel in twenty years, but after three days with The English Assassin, I felt I had been given a healthy dose of Europe again. I won't bore you with a synopis (you can get that from other reviewers), suffice it to say it's about stolent art, Nazis, Bankers, and deadly secrets, personal, political, and national. The hero is an Israeli hit man with a heart; his antagonist is as complicated a character as he is. Ths book was loaned to me by a friend's mother, and I can't wait to share it with others. If spy novels are your thing, you'll like this.
Rating:
Summary: Another superb winner from Daniel Silva
Review: This is another superb thriller from Daniel Silva with his great character Gabriel Allon. Stolen Nazi art,insternational co nspiracy at highest levels, treasures hidden and rediscovered and a vicious villain. Read it and enjoy, it's that good.
Rating: 
Summary: Plausible & original plot
Review: One of the most important things to me in a book is that the plot and the behavior of the characters should be plausible. Silva accomplishes this in the English Assassin. Silva does not take lazy shortcuts as some mystery-thriller authors do when they rely on implausible coincidences or withhold information from the reader.
Silva does a pretty good job of making sure that his characters are multi-dimensional: the good guys are not 100% good and the bad guys are not 100% bad. There is not as much character development as I might have liked, but it's not terrible either.
The book is more a thriller than a mystery. The puzzles are not terribly puzzling, but they are intriguing.
My only real complaint was that the dramatic pacing suffered from the way Silva's chapters were so short. Every few pages the chapter ends, often at a cliffhanger moment, and the scene shifts. There are not many scenes that are long enough to allow the suspense to build effectively. I was also less than thrilled with the way Silva shows you what the villains are doing, so there is not much mystery about what is going on.
I won't spoil the ending or anything, but for those of you who hate books that try to wow you with a far fetched, implausible, over-ambitious ending, you can rest assured that this book won't let you down with an ending of that kind. Overall it was a good read.
For an exciting spy thriller, try The Bourne Identity by Ludlum or Falling Rain by Eisler.
Rating:
Summary: A Better Than Average Action Novel
Review: My first Silva book, The English Assasin was recommended by a friend. The concept of an Israeli hit man doubling as an art restorer was intriguing, and the book lived up to my expectations. The story moved quickly, there was plenty of action and at least a little to be learned about Swiss banking and its role in WWII. It was also believable and generally well written. Based on this experience, I am sure I will tackle another Silva offering in the not far distant future.
Rating: 
Summary: Fun and almost unpredictable
Review: Silva writes with flair and style creating characters that are realistic and bold. Actually this is much better than DaVinci Code but does not pander to controversy and therefore will not outsell Brown's bilge. If you like suspenseful fiction, Silva appears to be the leading man. Downside: he needs an editor that can spell!
Rating:
Summary: Informative novel, not a lot of action
Review: "English Assasin" is a misleading book.
The story starts when Gabriel Allon, an art restorer/Israeli agent, goes to Zurich to restore a picture. Instead, he finds a dead body. Fleeing the scene, he is captured by the Swiss police. So, it is to be a one-man-against-system book. No, it isn't. And the other thing this book really isn't is a spy thriller. Yes, there are spies and assasins, but this novel is more about their real life and thoughts and choices, then James Bond-like plots and shoot-outs.
This novel is also about Switzerland, and its role during World War II and its present. For me, this was the most interesting part of the book.
What I didn't like was the latter part of the book. When you read a thriller, there is typically a build-up, presumably leading to some climax. But here Silva robs us of that, making two characters behaving against everything, which was told about them before. At least, one of those characters has an explanation (though it doesn't stand any scrutiny).
A drama about spies can be a good thing, but, sadly, Silva doesn't rise to the level of, say, Alan Furst, John le Carre or David Ignatius.
It seems like Silva wanted to give us the information more, then tell a story. Maybe a non-fiction book on the topic should be written instead of English Assasin.
Rating:
Summary: A good spy, adventure novel
Review: My second Silva novel and certainly not my last. Also, not quite as good as the confessor, this was fun, educational, fast moving....
Rating:
Summary: Hooked from the first chapter
Review: Silva hooked me into this novel in the first chapter and never let up. I won't repeat the story line here; but will tell you that the twists and turns of this story will keep you turning the pages until the end. Silva takes you through the streets of Zurich, Vienna, Paris, London, Corsica, and others in an exciting and thought provoking novel. The history concerning the stolen art by the Nazis during WWII was especially interesting. Enjoy this book.
Rating:
Summary: Enlightening page turner
Review: What I liked most about "The English Assasin" in terms of entertainment was its unrelentless action, chapter after chapter and of course its underlying message. This very riveting fast paced novel begins when Israeli Mossad agent and art restorer by profession, Gabriel Allon, is assigned to go to Switzerland, to restore a painting of a very rich Swiss art billonaire and found that this man has been murdered at his residence The dead man holds a secret that will be unveiled later in the ending chapters as Gabriel was not assigned to do that restoring job by sheer coincidence, and that, is the hidden mistery. The Swiss banker collection has a lot to do with the Nazi ransacking of very valuable art works placed in galleries across the Europeans countries occupied by Nazi Germany during the Second World War, most of these art galleries were Jewish owned. After the pillage, The Nazi sold the art works by way of unscrupulous Swiss uppers class bankers having shady deals with them So, Silva wants to leave a moral message, and that is that Swiss neutrality has nothing to do with politics but greed, an unethical policy that took Switzerland to rank among the countries with the highest material standards of living of the world, then neutrality carries its sinister reasons, It is the country where the great robbers used and use to deposit their booties protected by the laws of bank secrecy, Switzerland is not a country but a Big Bank that will not atone for the sins of the past and will not feel responsible for the consequence of its actions in the future, a country that makes business out of the money embezzled everywhere around the world With a polished prose, great writing skills, crime fiction elements and international thriller settings, Silva has made worth reading a great enlightening work, showing that he has become a great writer with a great future.
Rating:
Summary: A Riveting Novel...
Review: I had never heard of Daniel Silva nor seen any of his works until I walked into my local library about a week ago and saw this novel. I decided it sounding like the kind of books I tend to enjoy and I found it was a book that I plan on adding to my massive book collection very soon. The English Assassin is no Dan Brown book to be sure and it was never intended to be marketed that way, especially since it was published long before The DaVinci Code. The plot twists in the book were amazing along with the description of various cities, paintings, and history of World War II to present day. Silva weaves a wonderful thriller novel together with several story arcs at the beginning that converge at the end of the novel to really leave a zinging ending. This is one of the better books I have read and the intensive look at foreign policy and diplomacy that must have been done prior to this novel definately shows.
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