The Kill Artist: 1 (Gabriel Allon)

Product Information

Uzi flies to Jerusalem with a video tape of he ambassador's last minutes. After he and Shamron review the tape, Uzi visits Bella. Yossi Gavish identifies a waiter on the tape. Jacqueline goes to dinner with al-Tawfiki. While al-Twafiki's apartment is empty, Gabriel enters and places listening devices while Randall Karp watches for al-Tawfiki's return. In Paris, Tariq al-Hourani kills the Israeli ambassador, his wife and two bodyguards. He then shoots and kills an American student he had being seeing as cover. Ari Shamron has been reinstated as director of the Office after a series of disasters. Shamron is saddled with Lev Ahroni as his operations chief. Shamron watches international news feeds of the assassination. He calls Uzi Navot in Paris and issues instructions then travels to Jerusalem to brief the Prime Minister. He identifies the perpetrator as al-Hourani and asks permission to assign Gabriel to kill al-Hourani. The prime minister agrees. Yusef al-Tawfiki takes a taxi from the airport to an apartment in Paris where he is greeted by Uzi Navot. Meanwhile, in Jerusalem, Mordecai tells Lev Ahroni that the entire staff of the Ottawa Station is absent. Ahroni realizes that no one knows Ari Shamron's whereabouts. Ahroni tells Mordecai to find Shamron.

Jacqueline goes to spend the night with al-Tawfiki. After they have sex, he tells her about the violence of his childhood. During the night al-Tawfiki's phone rings with a message about a meeting. Al-Tawfiki tells Jacqueline that the call was a wrong number. The next morning, Jacqueline and Gabriel argue about the morality of Shamron's operation. Jacqueline agrees to continue. Gabriel hires a former member of the Central Intelligence Agency to set up listening devices to monitor Tawfiki. Gabriel recovers from his wound in Israel, where Jacqueline has been forced to relocate due to media coverage of the event. One day, Gabriel spots Yusef in a local market and questions him at gunpoint. Yusef admits that he was working for Shamron as a double agent, and that Shamron had concocted the whole plot so Gabriel could finish off Tariq. When an angry Gabriel confronts Shamron, the wizened director is unapologetic and insists that it was both necessary to kill Tariq and just to have the killer be Gabriel.

Need Help?

Nothing happens for ten days. Gabriel meets again with Ari Shamron and asks the Jacqueline be pulled out. Shamron refuses and tells Gabriel to take some time. Gabriel visits his wife Leah, whom most people believe to have been killed in Vienna, at the Stratford Clinic; she does not recognize him. Gabriel also speaks with Leonard Avery, Leah's doctor, who recommends trying a new drug; Gabriel approves. Another sweltering month in Charlotte, another boatload of mysteries past and present for overworked, overstressed forensic anthropologist Temperance Brennan.

This is a stylish spy thriller with the ‘cold' war of the twentieth century superseded by the ‘secret’ war in the middle-east and its international support network. There are harrowing descriptions of atrocities committed against Palestinians held in refugee camps of Beirut - which Israel chose to ignore - and a killer haunted by the deaths he committed in the service of his country. Israel’s Prime Minister reinstates Ari Shamron as Mossad director. Shortly thereafter, Israel’s ambassador is murdered in Paris. The crime has all of the markings of Tariq al-Hourani, a terrorist mastermind. Jacqueline meets with Gabriel and describes the telephone in al-Tawfiki's apartment. She tells Gabriel about her suspicions and that she has agreed to go out to dinner with al-Tawfiki the coming evening. Al-Tawfiki is suspicious; he passes a message to Kemel Azouri who travels to London to meet him. Al-Tawfiki tells Azouri about catching Jacqueline going through his property. Azouri tells al-Tawfiki to continue seeing Jacqueline.

Success!

The Kill Artist” suffered from some “too cute” plot devices and some too easily wrapped up plot points, and from a ridiculous scene with Yasir Arafat and the main bad guy in the text, a terrorist named Tariq. Upon arriving at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, Yusef al-Tawfiki tells Jacqueline Delacroix to sit in a coffee shop and wait for Lucien Daveau. Leila Khalifa arrives and tells Jacqueline that there has been a change in plans and that she will accompany Jacqueline to meet Lucien. Leila led Jacqueline to a flight to Montreal, Canada. Watching, Gabriel Allon realized that Tariq al-Hourani had eluded them. Shamron and Gabriel, on board the publisher's private jet with Stone, take off, following the commercial flight to Montreal. Stone tells Ari that he wants access to Gabriel to tell his story in Stone's newspaper. Ari realizes that he must free himself of Stone. When I finished this I thought huh, the hero didn’t do anything heroic and he did not solve the bad guy problem. The good action was done by another. Ok, but that kind of let me down - not much hero development here. Quando o Daniel Silva já tinha o controlo dos meus pensamentos e emoções, eis que me é apresentada Sarah, conhecida no mundo da moda como Jacqueline Delacroix. A agente de 33 anos é uma presença imprescindível para o enredo. Esta mulher bela e independente é uma poderosa presença feminina na vida de Gabriel Allon.