The Collector

Daniel Silva, the #1 New York Times bestselling novelist, crafts another gripping thriller in this action-packed story of international intrigue with huge stakes. Daniel Silva, the #1 New York Times bestselling novelist, is back with a thrilling new thriller. On the morning after the Venice Preservation Society’s annual black-tie gala, art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon enters his favorite coffee bar on the island of Murano to find General Cesare Ferrari, the commander of the Art Squad, eagerly awaiting his arrival. The Carabinieri have made a startling discovery in the Amalfi villa of a murdered South African shipping tycoon—a secret vault containing an empty frame and stretcher matching the dimensions of the world’s most valuable missing painting. Before the trail runs cold, General Ferrari requests that Gabriel locate the artwork in silence.

"Is that not what you do?"

"Identifying pilfered paintings? In a technical sense, sure. However, you excel at it much more than we do. The artwork under consideration is Johannes Vermeer's The Concert, one of thirteen pieces of art that were pilfered in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. Gabriel soon learns that the painting has changed hands as part of an illegal billion-dollar business deal involving a man code-named the Collector, an energy executive with close ties to the highest levels of Russian power. Gabriel makes this discovery with the assistance of an unlikely ally, a stunning Danish computer hacker and professional thief. The cornerstone of a plot that, if it comes to pass, may throw the world into a cataclysmic war is the missing masterpiece. With millions of lives on the line, Gabriel must pull out a bold theft of his own to thwart the plan.