Daniel Silva is one of the best writers alive.

His 2025 book — An Inside Job — is as good as any of the rest of the Gabriel Allon series.

Art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon …

But when he discovers the body of a mysterious woman floating in the waters of the Venetian Lagoon, he finds himself in a desperate race to recover a lost masterpiece by Leonardo da Vinci.

The painting, a portrait of a beautiful young girl, has been gathering dust in a storeroom at the Vatican Museums for more than a century, misattributed and hidden beneath a worthless picture by an unknown artist.

Because no one knows that the Leonardo is there, no one notices when it disappears one night during a suspicious power outage.

No one but the ruthless mobsters and moneymen behind the theft—and the mysterious woman whom Gabriel found in a watery grave in Venice. A woman without a name. A woman without a face.

The action moves at breakneck speed from the galleries and auction houses of London to an enclave of unimaginable wealth on the French Riveria—and, finally, to a shocking climax in St. Peter’s Square, where the life of a pope hangs in the balance.

Gabriel Allon was in charge of Israeli intelligence. 

But now that he’s retired in Venice, recent books are more centred on Italy, art, and Catholicism.

It could be that the author doesn’t have the heart to comment on what’s happening in Israel in recent years. He had been a great defender.