the english girl review

Happy Thursday, all!  If I were jumping head-first into themes, today could be called "Thriller Thursday," since this week's review is of The English Girl, by Daniel Silva.  I don't usually grab spy-assassin novels from the shelves, but I was traveling a few months ago and happened to pick this one up before a flight.  It was not what I'd expected, but I ended up enjoying it.  If you've never heard of this author (like me, you were apparently under a crime-rock) and are looking for a gripping story, I'd check it out.

Basic plot: (from goodreads) When a beautiful young British woman vanishes on the island of Corsica, a prime minister's career is threatened with destruction. Allon, the wayward son of Israeli intelligence, is thrust into a game of shadows where nothing is what it seems...and where the only thing more dangerous than his enemies might be the truth.

On a scale from 1 to Cripplingly Depressing: Well, there's violence and assassination...so - high in that regard - but this was not a dark, brooding read.

Memories from reading: I picked this one up on the way home from a trip and the descriptions of the Mediterranean (Greece/Crete, Jerusalem) were wonderful.  The characters were diverse and engaging, and I would have liked to have seen more of the group that worked together.  I hadn't heard of Daniel Silva before, but this is one of a series (#13, yikes), so it's possible that's fleshed out in other books.

Teeth-gnashing: For the first half of the book I thought it was going to be one thing, but then it turned into something totally different.  To be truthful, it started to bore me, but after a brief and slightly miffed hiatus, I liked a lot.  It almost seemed like two different books.

Weapon of Choice: Chunkster paperback from Hudson News at the airport.

Other titles by this author:
The Kill Artist
The English Assassin
The Rembrandt Affiar
The Defector

Have you read books written by this author before? Are you big into crime novels?