In a spellbinding new masterpiece by #1 New York Times bestselling
author Daniel Silva, Gabriel Allon undertakes a high-stakes search for
the greatest art forger who ever lived
Legendary spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon has at long last severed
ties with Israeli intelligence and settled quietly in Venice, the only
place where he has ever truly known peace. His beautiful wife, Chiara,
has taken over the day-to-day management of the Tiepolo Restoration
Company, and their two young children are discreetly enrolled in a
neighborhood scuola elementare. For his part, Gabriel spends his days
wandering the streets and canals of the watery city, bidding farewell to
the demons of his tragic, violent past.
But when the eccentric London art dealer Julian Isherwood asks Gabriel
to investigate the circumstances surrounding the rediscovery and
lucrative sale of a centuries-old painting, he is drawn into a deadly
game of cat and mouse where nothing is as it seems.
Gabriel soon discovers that the work in question, a portrait of an
unidentified woman attributed to Sir Anthony van Dyck, is almost
certainly a fiendishly clever fake. To find the mysterious figure who
painted it--and uncover a multibillion-dollar fraud at the pinnacle of
the art world--Gabriel conceives one of the most elaborate deceptions of
his career. If it is to succeed, he must become the very mirror image of
the man he seeks: the greatest art forger the world has ever known.
Stylish, sophisticated, and ingeniously plotted, Portrait of an Unknown
Woman is a wildly entertaining journey through the dark side of the art
world--a place where unscrupulous dealers routinely deceive their
customers and deep-pocketed investors treat great paintings as though
they were just another asset class to be bought and sold at a profit.
From its elegant opening to the shocking twists of its climax, the novel
is a tour de force of storytelling and one of the finest pieces of heist
fiction ever written. And it is still more proof that, when it comes to
international intrigue and suspense, Daniel Silva has no equal.
