Daniel Silva · 2012 · thriller
Daniel Silva's 2012 novel. Asked to quietly investigate a curator's death inside the Vatican, Gabriel Allon uncovers a global ring looting the treasures of antiquity to fund the terror of Hezbollah. Running backward along the ancient road from Rome to Jerusalem - through Berlin and Vienna - Allon races to stop a plot beneath the Temple Mount designed to set the Middle East ablaze.
- 1Rome
Restoring a Caravaggio in the Vatican, Allon is asked by the Pope's secretary to investigate the death of a curator found beneath Michelangelo's dome - a death the Church has already ruled a suicide, but which reeks of murder.
- 2Berlin
The dead woman had been tracing a network that loots antiquities from the war-torn Middle East and launders them through Europe, and the trail of the stolen treasures leads Allon north into Germany.
- 3Vienna
Through the dealers and forgers of Vienna the money runs on toward Hezbollah and its Iranian masters, and Allon realizes the looted gold is buying something far more dangerous than mere terror.
- 4Jerusalem
It ends in Jerusalem, beneath the most contested ground on earth, where a plot against the Temple Mount is timed to ignite a holy war - and Allon must stop it as a papal visit turns the sacred city into a tinderbox.