Gabriel Allon returns in a few days, and as hundreds of thousands of expectant fans snatch up “Portrait of a Spy,” author Daniel Silva’s timing and eye will once again astonish reviewers and his public. The drama and the consequences of the Arab Spring and the future of al Qaeda confound the American public. Silva provides not just a riveting thriller full of his trademark tradecraft and compelling, detailed descriptions of post-Sept. 11 espionage and the highest end of the art world, but also a means to understanding the enormity of the events unfolding in real time.
And the stakes. The stakes are so incredibly high, but because the Arab world is so difficult to understand, Silva’s great contribution isn’t the extraordinarily high entertainment value of the amazing series of 11 Allon thrillers that began with “The Kill Artist” in 2000.
It is that Silva is explaining the realities of the world we live in through his fiction. A handful of novelists have been climbing this mountain in recent years: Alex Berenson, Robert Ferrigno, Vince Flynn, Brad Thor and others.
Some have created characters like Flynn’s Mitch Rapp who embody the American hero who is every day on the front lines of this long war. Others try to communicate the possible consequences of a long war on national character and international relations as Steven Pressfield does in his new offering “The Profession.”
Silva’s great contribution, though, is to communicate Israel’s situation and Israel’s perspective. Allon is a great ambassador for the Jewish state, and Israel’s real ambassador, the historian Michael Oren, would do well to keep boxed sets of the Allon novels close at hand for the Americans he finds uncommonly dense as to the way the world really works and how it is understood by — and must be understood by — the realists within Israel.
Few things annoy my friends as much as advance copies of the most sought-after novels that talk show hosts who read receive. My heavily annotated copy of “Portrait” has its own distribution list, with my friend Michelle the AP art history teacher first in line to discover which of the great masters Silva will introduce to his public next. (His first name is Tiziana.)
Gary the trial lawyer and Bud the contractor are next, and still others if those at the head of the line read fast enough to beat the publication date.
From this circle of trusted borrowers, I gather reactions that inform my annual interview with Silva. And from these readers I know that Allon has changed the way they understand the Middle East, the Arab world, jihadists, and, of course, Israel.
“Portrait” will update that understanding, layering in the enormity of changes brought about by the Arab Spring.
One evil character, a master motivator of terror, sums up the dangers of the time in which we live in one snarled warning to one of the protectors of the free peoples.
“[A] man such as yourself is not so naive to think that this great Arab awakening is going to produce Western-style democracy in the Middle East,” he states.
“The revolt might have started with the students and the secularists, but the brothers will have the last word. We are the future.”
Silva’s Allon, and his colleagues across the civilized world and their allies within the Arab world — especially women — plan, act and risk to prevent that from happening. As does Silva and other serious artists in words, for which we should all be grateful — especially those of us who love great reads.
Examiner Columnist Hugh Hewitt is a law professor at Chapman University Law School and a nationally syndicated radio talk show host who blogs daily at HughHewitt.com.
