The Black Widow: Gabriel Allon must infiltrate ISIS's terror network after a Paris bombing—one last deadly mission before leading Israeli intelligence

France had been seized with a rise in violence to Jewish citizens and their properties. The latest had been the murder of three children in Toulouse. Four thousand documented attacks in a year, were recorded and investigated by Hannah Weinberg and her team at the Isaac Weinberg Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism in Paris, France. Hannah had pressured France into protecting its plagued Jewish minority. Located on the rue des Rosiers, the center was on the most famous street in the city’s most visible Jewish neighborhood. With a conference title that would incite, Hannah decided to have a meeting concerning the recent waves of violence. She invited guests from the States as well as France; however, France’s Interior Ministry and Muslim spiritual leaders declined. A bomb leveled the center at the inception of Hannah’s meeting. A young woman known as “la veuve noir”—the black widow, along with her male accomplice, committed the heinous crime. The atrocity affected Hannah’s friend, Gabriel Allon, an Israeli operative. Allon had been appointed to become head of the Office, Israel’s intelligence service; however, France asked his aid in tracking down the killers’ and their leader, known only as Saladin, before he attempted his next target. Allon complied. Allon assembled his team of spies, operatives, and hired a non-operative, female physician, Dr. Natalie Mizrahi. Allon trained her, changed her name to Dr. Leila Hadawi, a Palestinian, and ordered her to delve deep into the Belly of the Beast (ISIS), uncover information and obtain Saladin’s true identity. Ultimately, she became the trusted physician of Saladin, a wily, dangerous character, who once worked for Iraq’s Secret Police. He planned to wreak havoc on his next destination. Without giving too much away, this is a great summer read. It’s full of suspense, and like a movie, at times, there are heart-stopping moments as you turn the page to find out what happens to Natalie. Plot and structure are good, as well as the characters and their emotional viewpoints. There are words that confounded me like the ‘minaret moon.’ I know what a minaret is, but I admit more than once my fingers did the walking to the dictionary concerning the author, Mr. Silva’s use of adjectives. Another was the word ‘ocular,’ which concerns the eye. The author used the word in describing the sun shading a room in the ‘house of many rooms.’ I found his description of some words new and fascinating. All in all, this is the second book I’ve read by Daniel Silva, and more than likely, I’ll read another. I gave this book five stars.

I started The Black Widow yesterday and finished it today because I couldn’t put it down – seriously, I only slept 3 hours last night because I had to keep going back to this book. I’ve read every book in Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon series, and this is one of the very best. The Black Widow takes the issue of ISIS head-on, dealing with things that have occurred already, and things that could occur, but hopefully won’t. This book really resonated with me because it brings most of the action to the United States for the first time in the Allon series – a nightmare scenario to be sure, but all the more interesting since we’re the subject. Also, the plot line of this book is well developed, crystal clear, and keeps you on the edge of your seat. The book starts with a major act of terror by ISIS in France. In order to inherit a previously unknown Van Gogh painting willed to him by a prominent friend killed in the attack, the French government wants Gabriel to find the perpetrators. This leads the Office team to recruit a woman doctor in Jerusalem and train her to infiltrate ISIS. It’s discovered that a major ISIS strike in the United States is imminent, and the intelligence services of Israel, Jordan, France, England, and the United States work together to try to stop it from occurring. Writing from Gabriel Allon’s Israeli perspective, Mr. Silva is blunt in characterizing the strengths and weaknesses of the countries intrinsic to the story, including ours. He is so well-informed and prescient about what the bad guys of the world are up to, that whenever I read any of Mr. Silva’s books I wish they were required reading for everyone in government. That all this brilliant insight is given to us in the form of a story so well-written and engaging is Mr. Silva’s unique talent. I even devour the author’s notes and acknowledgements – even these are interesting. I can’t say any more than this – if international intrigue and a great story are things you enjoy, this book will give it to you in spades. Buy the book – it’s great!

I can't praise the author enough. But to the careful readers and cognoscente,I have a request. #PLEASE_PURCHASE_HOUSE_OF_SPIES_AND_BLACK_WIDOW_EN_MASSE . After finishing this 100miles/hr novel,you'd require only a day to muse the facts,scenarios,end results.Your body,your mind would demand you to unravel the "What next". Now coming to the novel, it's something more than worth reading.The way mr.Silva riveted the whole plot and it's boundaries ,it will greet you to the clandestine global terror network.And most importantly, you will get to know eventually that it's fiction in genre but truth in nature. Characters,places, phenomena are fictitious but it's a bare verity that, the WEST, Middle-east,in fact the whole world is under constant threats of leading Terrorism Hierarchy. And being an INDIAN I have enormous respect for MOSSAD, CIA,KGB alongside my indigenous secret service R&AW. At the end of the day, it's such a piece which would get you scolding from your parents and would give you tingle to your spine.

J'apprécie beaucoup tout que Daniel Silva écrit. Il y a de l'intrigue, action et romance. Recommande

A loved Daniel Silva books since the first one that I read many years ago. I have read all the his following books after the first. A think that this statement does not require more details. He is excelente.

This book was my first acquaintance with Silva and with his hero, the master Israeli spy Gabriel Allon, who has starred in more than a dozen novels. Allon is everything a thriller hero should be: taciturn yet passionate, intellectual yet a man of action, and basically invincible. Here The Black Widow converges with reality , because Silva’s fictional ISIS bombing was preceded and followed by a string of real-life ISIS atrocities, some directed against Jews, others against gays, still others against random Europeans and Americans. The intensely present reality of ISIS terrorism means that Silva’s fictional treatment of it has a difficult choice to make. The thriller form strongly pushes for a happy ending. And this is our strong whish in the present reality.

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