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: 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: Another great effort from Silva
Review: With A Death in Vienna, Silva provides the third book in a trilogy centered on the treatment of the Jews in WWII. In a reprise of Gabriel Allon, the art restorer and sometimes Israeli spy from previous novels, Silva spins a tale of intrigue that keeps the reader turning the pages. The core characters from previous efforts are complemented by a new cast of believable characters that come to life within the pages. The story provides the usual action, excitement, and intrigue that are Silva?s trademark. At the same time, deep emotional issues (some known to readers of previous works and some newly introduced in this latest effort) facing Gabriel provide an added dimension to the action. If you read and enjoyed The English Assassin and The Confessor, then A Death in Vienna is a must.
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