Painting by Numbers Takes on New Meaning in The Rembrandt Affair

Author:  Daniel Silva
Title:  The Rembrandt Affair
Publisher:  Putnum

Restoring old paintings doesn't appear to be a very exciting line of work, nor is it normally the centerpiece of espionage thrillers. Art heists offer to be a sexier enterprise, but in pop culture for every interesting art-napping caper like The Thomas Crown Affair (1999), we are treated to turkeys like Bruce Willis' horrible film Hudson Hawk (1991).

When Daniel Silva's thick, new novel arrived on my doorstep, I wondered how long it would take me to plod through 500 hardbound pages about a lost Rembrandt portrait that he painted of one of his lovers, Hendrickje Stoffels. Thankfully the painting was just a jumping off point into a plot that was full of history, intrigue, and color. I stopped noticing the page numbers after the first third of the book.

The Rembrandt Affair is Silva's latest chapter in the life of Gabriel Allon, a former Israeli government/covert ops agent. Gabriel has operated with the cover of being an art restorer, a trade in which he is actually highly trained and very proficient. Though recently retired from the spook business in a remote location in England, he is drawn back into active service when his former handlers come to him about the case of the missing Rembrandt, a masterpiece that had left a stream of blood in its brush strokes.

A city's name opens each chapter helping the reader track the drama as it trips back and forth from the British Isles, through Western Europe, South America, the Middle East, and a brief stop in the United States before finishing the full arc in England. Spy organizations from many of these locations get involved in the heist that has its roots back in World War II, yet have implications to the nuclear weapons potential of Islamic countries that in the near future could become a serious threat to Israel's existence.

The framing of the story is in the present day, but often Silva uses current news headlines as opportunities to preach his geopolitical, social, and economic viewpoints. This part of the narration distracted me from simply enjoying the novel. Silva needs to remember that along with some of his best characters, his readers should be treated gently.

The heart of the novel lies with the last rightful owner of the painting, a Jewish family who faced persecution from the Nazi's and deportation to a death camp. One of the young daughters, Lena Herzfeld, survived and she opens up the mystery about the lost masterpiece to her new guardian angel, Gabriel. It is her fragility and her quiet strength that motivates Gabriel to right the wrongs of the past and hopefully set the stage for a peaceful future. You can see some of the author's own passion for this cause in Gabriel—in 2009 Daniel Silva was appointed to the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.

Though The Rembrandt Affair is easy to read for those new to Daniel Silva's writing, it is obvious that many of the characters have relationships and history beyond the covers of this book. So many times the story pointed back to what recently happened to Gabriel and his wife Chiara in Russia that I decided to put the last two books in the series, The Defector, and Moscow Rules on my reading list. If you like espionage thrillers, you might enjoy a book about Gabriel Allon and his friends on your reading list too.

 
**This review first published on August 31, 2010.