Type of bind: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Putnam Adult
Manufacturer: Putnam Adult
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 416
Printing Date: January 31, 2003
Publishing house: Putnam Adult
Release Date: February 24, 2003
Sale Popularity Level: 58927
Studio: Putnam Adult
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Product Description:
Detective Gabriel Allon returns in this stunning thriller of ancient and modern betrayal, long-buried secrets and unthinkable deeds. In Munich, writer Benjamin Stern enters his flat to find a man leafing through his research. When Stern confronts him, the man shoots him, murmurs a few words in Latin, gathers the papers and leaves. In Venice, art restorer and Israeli agent Gabriel Allon reads a message saying that Stern is dead; can he leave immediately? At the Vatican, a priest named Pietro paces in the garden, pondering the discoveries he has made, the enemies he will make, and the journey he must undertake. Silva weaves these three threads into a multilayered mystery peopled with memorable characters and distinguished by rich prose.
Amazon.com Review:
Gabriel Allon, Daniel Silva's protagonist in an interesting series about a Mossad spy who doubles as an art restorer, returns in a fascinating tale of Vatican complicity in the Holocaust. Author Silva, a political journalist turned espionage writer, has done his homework on some recently unearthed documents and written a fast-paced novel that will reawaken the discusion regarding whether the Catholic Church turned a blind eye to Nazi atrocities against Jews in occupied countries during World War II, and if so, why. Allon remains an enigmatic figure whose desire for revenge against the Leopard, the assassin who killed his wife and child, compels him to put down his paints and brushes and take arms against Israel's past and present enemies. The Confessor is a solidly plotted, well-crafted story that will appeal to fans of Allen Furst, John le Carré, and other standouts in the international espionage genre. --Jane Adams
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Rated by buyers 
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While all of Silva's novels essentially have the same plot: a struggle between virtuous Israelis and evil Arabs, this one has the Vatican in its center. Silva, for all his disclaimers, knows as we all should that the Catholic Church is probably the most evil institution and the oldest evil institution in our history -- certainly the most evil after the Nazi SS.
The Vatican and its personnel claim a spiritual power but their power is simply the power of evil domination over ignorant billions of people. The Vatican's collabortion with Hitler in the demise of Europe's Jews is controversial but clear: the Church had no interest in saving the Jews, whom it regarded as the enemies of the Church. And it was correct: the Jews have been hated by Christians for 2000 years because the Jews knew that the Christians had fabricated a Jesus who never existed: a divine son of God dying to save sinners. The real Jesus was an apocalyptic Jew who died defying Rome. The Jews have been uncomfortable for Christians from Paul of Tarsus to Adolf Hitler. Period.
Rated by buyers 
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(4.5 stars) The Leopard, an assassin who figures in a number of Silva novels, becomes a major player in this third Gabriel Allon novel, about the passive involvement of the Vatican in the Holocaust and its subsequent denial of all responsibility. Basing the novel on research by scholars like Susan Zuccotti (whom Silva credits in his acknowledgments) into the secret connections between factions within the Catholic Church and the Third Reich, Silva creates a chilling and utterly compelling story about the reasons that the Vatican might have feared the Jews were a threat to its own power and wanted to prevent the ultimate establishment of an Israeli homeland.
Gabriel Allon, an assassin for the Israeli Mossad (in his secret life) and a talented restorer of paintings and sculptures in Venice, often for the Vatican (in his public life as Mario Delvecchio), is working in Venice when he receives word that Ben Stern, the son of his Israeli mentor Ari Shamron, has been murdered in Munich while researching a book. The subject of his book is so secret that not even his Munich university department head knows what it is. Gabriel leaves Venice for Munich and discovers nothing, though phone records suggest that Ben has been investigating a secret church conference that took place at a convent in Brenzone, Italy, during the Holocaust.
Further investigation brings Allon into contact with members of Crux Vera, an ultra-conservative organization within the church, with their leaders well entrenched in positions of power close to the Pope. These must publicly hide their involvement because the new, liberal Pope Paul VII is anxious for transparency and reconciliation with the Jews. When the Pope decides to attend a meeting with the head of a Rome synagogue to express his regrets for any Vatican failures in responding to the Holocaust, the Crux Vera goes into action, contacting The Leopard to be sure that their involvement is never discovered.
Silva's use of recent research to give veracity to the plot and his sensitivity to the various political influences at play create incredible tension. Allon, Shamron, and the supporting characters, many of them Catholic church luminaries, come to life and develop as the action evolves. Allon is a sympathetic protagonist, despite his violent actions to protect the interests of the Israelis, and his sense of honor shines through, even as he kills his enemies with seeming impunity. Ultimately, Silva creates a fascinating historical atmosphere and fills his novel with accurate historical research showing the complicity of some church luminaries to prevent the establishment of a Jewish homeland. n Mary Whipple
Moscow Rules
Prince of Fire
A Death in Vienna
The Marching Season
Rated by buyers 
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Ben Stern is a Jewish scholar living and working in Munich. On sabbatical, he is murdered while working on a book. With his death, the manuscript is nowhere to be found and nobody seems to know what it was about. Gabriel Allon is called upon to investigate. As the story progresses, Gabriel must uncover a conspiracy in the Curia, learnthe truth about Nazi collaborators, save a new pope's life, and get an elusive assassin known as the Leopard.
THE CONFESSOR is a first-rate espionage thriller complete with convoluted plot, fast action, beautiful woman, and engaging characters. The issue of Vatican inaction during the Holocaust and the opening of papal archives from that period is a real one and provides an interesting backdrop to Silva's story.
My main complaint about this book, and the reason I didn't give it five stars, involves the ending. As THE CONFESSOR comes to a close, everything is tied up neatly except that the Leopard has gotten away. That's fine if you're going to follow it up elsewhere, such as keep him for another book. Instead, the author tacks on a two-page final chapter (what amounts to a very brief epilogue), in which he disposes of the Leopard without any fanfare whatever. It's as if Silva ran out of paper. It reads as though the character, who was reputedly so elusive that there were no pictures of him and his identity was a mystery, handed out cards with his name, address, phone number, and ID picture on them as he fled the scene near the end of the story.
Aside from what struck me as a letdown at the very end, I thought THE CONFESSOR was a fine book. It's not Silva's very first story to feature Allon, so I'll go back and begin at the start, but I will definitely be reading more of this guy's work. I recommend this one.
Rated by buyers -
"The Confessor", part of the Holocaust trilogy featuring Israeli spy Gabriel Allon once again delivers excitement, intrigue, human drama, and superb historical interest. The fictional Pope of "The Confessor" is the target of a plot within the Vatican intended to silence him because of his desire to confess the sins of the Church during the Holocaust. His impassioned words brought me to tears.
Rated by buyers -
This is my very first Daniel Silva novel, but definately not my last. In short, I am hooked. Why? Because Silva's writing is crisp, taut, and fast-paced, without being cliche. From the opening pages of the book, Silva writes in a way that keeps you with this work until (a)you can't read any more because you are tired(or out of time!), and/or (b)you have finished the book.
This work of intrigue at its complex/darkest is about an art restorer by the name of Gabriel Allon who investigates a friends murder at the hands of neo-Nazis, or so we think. The novel delves headlong into the Vatican's controversial history during World War II: whether or not they helped European Jews fleeing deportation to Nazi death camps, or did they faciliate their doom through inaction. Early on in the book we are introduced to the fact that the murder of Benjamin Stein is much larger than a simple hate-crime by a derranged Nazi.
The books plot does not take any unnecssessary twists and turns; a literary device all-to-common in most thrillers. Silva keeps the story line relatively simple, without being simplistic. His characters are rich and textured; the dialogue is incissive.
Like I said, this was my very first book by this author, but not my last. If you love a good read that keeps you engaged throughout, giving you a good mental workout, that this work is for you.
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