Zusatztext Thrills and humorput Moscow Rules atop your summer beach book list. St. Louis Post-Dispatch Silva continues to provide some of the most exciting spy fiction since Ian Fleming put down his martini and invented James Bond. Rocky Mountain News One of the most intriguing characters in modern spy fictiona tense and exciting conclusion. Some series get boring after several books, but the adventures of Gabriel Allon just get better and better. The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News (Stuart, FL) Appealing characters and beautifully rendered settings. The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC) Silva has been credited for giving new life to international thrillers. This is a case where credit has been given where credit is definitely due. Tampa Tribune Informationen zum Autor Daniel Silva Klappentext The death of a journalist leads Israeli spy Gabriel Allon to Russia, where he finds that, in terms of spycraft, even he has something to learn in this #1 New York Times bestseller. Moscow is no longer the gray, grim city of Soviet times. Now it is awash with oil wealth and choked with bulletproof Bentleys. But in the new Russia, power once again resides behind the walls of the Kremlin. Critics of the ruling class are ruthlessly silenced. And a new generation of Stalinists plots to reclaim an empire-and challenge the United States. One of those men is Ivan Kharkov, ex-KGB, who built a financial empire on the rubble of the Soviet Union. Part of his profit comes from arms dealing. And he is about to deliver Russia's most sophisticated weapons to the United States' most dangerous enemy, unless Israeli foreign intelligence agent Gabriel Allon can stop him. Slipping across borders from Vatican City to St. Petersburg, Jerusalem to Washington, DC, Allon is playing for time-and playing by Moscow rules.1 COURCHEVEL, FRANCE The invasion began, as it always did, in the last days of December. They came by armored caravan up the winding road from the floor of the Rhône Valley or descended onto the treacherous mountaintop airstrip by helicopter and private plane. Billionaires and bankers, oil tycoons and metal magnates, supermodels and spoiled children: the moneyed elite of a Russia resurgent. They streamed into the suites of the Cheval Blanc and the Byblos and commandeered the big private chalets along the rue de Bellecôte. They booked Les Caves nightclub for private all-night parties and looted the glittering shops of the Croissette. They snatched up all the best ski instructors and emptied the wineshops of their best champagne and cognac. By the morning of the twenty-eighth there was not a hair appointment to be had anywhere in town, and Le Chalet de Pierres, the famous slope-side restaurant renowned for its fire-roasted beef, had stopped taking reservations for dinner until mid-January. By New Year's Eve, the conquest was complete. Courchevel, the exclusive ski resort high in the French Alps, was once more a village under Russian occupation. Only the Hôtel Grand Courchevel managed to survive the onslaught from the East. Hardly surprising, devotees might have said, for, at the Grand, Russians, like those with children, were quietly encouraged to find accommodations elsewhere. Her rooms were thirty in number, modest in size, and discreet in appointment. One did not come to the Grand for gold fixtures and suites the size of football pitches. One came for a taste of Europe as it once was. One came to linger over a Campari in the lounge bar or to dawdle over coffee and Le Monde in the breakfast room. Gentlemen wore jackets to dinner and waited until after breakfast before changing into their ski attire. Conversation was conducted in a confessional murmur and with excessive courtesy. The Internet had not yet arrived at the Grand and the phones were moody. Her guests did not seem to mind; the...

“Thrills and humor…put Moscow Rules atop your summer beach book list.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch

“Silva continues to provide some of the most exciting spy fiction since Ian Fleming put down his martini and invented James Bond.”—Rocky Mountain News

“One of the most intriguing characters in modern spy fiction…a tense and exciting conclusion. Some series get boring after several books, but the adventures of Gabriel Allon just get better and better.”—The Stuart News/Port St. Lucie News (Stuart, FL)

“Appealing characters and beautifully rendered settings.”—The News & Observer (Raleigh, NC)

“Silva has been credited for giving new life to international thrillers. This is a case where credit has been given where credit is definitely due.”—Tampa Tribune

Autorentext

Daniel Silva

Klappentext

The death of a journalist leads Israeli spy Gabriel Allon to Russia, where he finds that, in terms of spycraft, even he has something to learn in this #1 New York Times bestseller.

Moscow is no longer the gray, grim city of Soviet times. Now it is awash with oil wealth and choked with bulletproof Bentleys. But in the new Russia, power once again resides behind the walls of the Kremlin. Critics of the ruling class are ruthlessly silenced. And a new generation of Stalinists plots to reclaim an empire-and challenge the United States.

One of those men is Ivan Kharkov, ex-KGB, who built a financial empire on the rubble of the Soviet Union. Part of his profit comes from arms dealing. And he is about to deliver Russia's most sophisticated weapons to the United States' most dangerous enemy, unless Israeli foreign intelligence agent Gabriel Allon can stop him. Slipping across borders from Vatican City to St. Petersburg, Jerusalem to Washington, DC, Allon is playing for time-and playing by Moscow rules.

Leseprobe
1 COURCHEVEL, FRANCE

The invasion began, as it always did, in the last days of December. They came by armored caravan up the winding road from the floor of the Rhône Valley or descended onto the treacherous mountaintop airstrip by helicopter and private plane. Billionaires and bankers, oil tycoons and metal magnates, supermodels and spoiled children: the moneyed elite of a Russia resurgent. They streamed into the suites of the Cheval Blanc and the Byblos and commandeered the big private chalets along the rue de Bellecôte. They booked Les Caves nightclub for private all-night parties and looted the glittering shops of the Croissette. They snatched up all the best ski instructors and emptied the wineshops of their best champagne and cognac. By the morning of the twenty-eighth there was not a hair appointment to be had anywhere in town, and Le Chalet de Pierres, the famous slope-side restaurant renowned for its fire-roasted beef, had stopped taking reservations for dinner until mid-January. By New Year’s Eve, the conquest was complete. Courchevel, the exclusive ski resort high in the French Alps, was once more a village under Russian occupation.

Only the Hôtel Grand Courchevel managed to survive the onslaught from the East. Hardly surprising, devotees might have said, for, at the Grand, Russians, like those with children, were quietly encouraged to find accommodations elsewhere. Her rooms were thirty in number, modest in size, and discreet in appointment. One did not come to the Grand for gold fixtures and suites the size of football pitches. One came for a taste of Europe as it once was. One came to linger over a Campari in the lounge bar or to dawdle over coffee and Le Monde in the breakfast room. Gentlemen wore jackets to dinner and waited until after breakfast before changing into their ski attire. Conversation was conducted in a confessional murmur and with excessive courtesy. The Internet had not yet arrived at the Grand and the phones were moody. Her guests did not seem to mind; they were as genteel as the Grand herself and trended toward late middle age. A wit from one of the flashier hotels in …