Reviews for El Confesor (The Confessor)

The average rating for El Confesor (The Confessor) based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2018-03-30 00:00:00 Gordon Labatte "He wanted to be a statesman when what the world needed most was a priest." I tore thru this novel. Read it in a day or so. This is the third novel in Mr. Silva's Gabriel Allon series, and the best of the three so far. Don't get me wrong, this is not great literature. However, it is decently written, has a great premise that has some basis in historical fact, and brings together facets of the Jewish state, the Holocaust, and the Vatican. There is a lot of hay to be made from those ingredients. When it comes to thriller's Mr Silva is one of the best I have come across for pacing. I found this text less eye roll inducing than its predecessor, although it is just as formulaic as the first two. But if the formula works for its intended purpose is there a need to redo it? A Jewish spy has to save the Pope from those within the Church who would hurt him. Come on...that's fun. I will continue to read through the series. I guess that says enough.

Review # 2 was written on 2013-03-18 00:00:00 Jose Cadavid I don't normally go for thriller spycraft fiction, but I confess I am totally addicted to Silva's spy novels about an Israeli assassin/spy and part-time art restorer named Gabriel Allon. The first book was written in 2000 and the latest in 2012 and in that time span, Silva draws a geopolitical arc starting with Nazi wartime crimes and the complicity of the Vatican and the Swiss in Nazi wartime looting. Then to the Palestinian conflict, Black September and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism. And after that, the end of the Cold War and the emergence of the Russian oligarchs. After that, 9/11, the war on terror, and the Arab Spring. Even the IRA had some chapters devoted to it. Probably the only incendiary current event not touched is North Korea, but that's because Gabriel Allon is a Europhile at heart. I read all 12 books completely out of sequence but it wasn't a problem as each stood on its own. In fact, by reading the books completely out of order, I had the added pleasure of discovering the genesis of relationships between various characters after bonds were formed later on in the series. Gabriel Allon is way sexier than James Bond.