The Kill Artist.

New York, NY Random House Audio, 2000. Audio Cassette Four Audio Cassette Tapes in "Like New" condition, housed in a black plastic tray, which is also in excellent condition. These are housed in a color cardstock slip case which shows the former owner's name to the exterior, a little mild rubbing to the corner tips and shows a crease on one side panel from being "crushed" (About 'Very Good'). Overall, Very Good+. Read by Jason Culp. Four Cassettes. Six hours. Audio Book: Cassette Tapes. This book is chronologically the first in the Gabriel Allon series. Here is the chronological order: 1. The Kill Artist; 2. The English Assassin; 3. The Confessor; 4. Death in Venice; 5. Prince of Fire; 6. The Messenger. In this book, Gabriel, a former assassin for Israel's foreign intelligence service, the Mossad, retired after the murders of his wife and son to lead a quiet life as an art restorer (one who fixes the wounded past). Gabriel's ex-boss, Ari Shamron, an Israeli spymaster (think George Smiley, but more treacherous), convinces Gabriel to leave his sheltered hermitage to hunt down Tariq, the assassin who killed Gabriel's family, before he can kill again. In an exquisitely wrought plot of treachery and counter-treachery, Silva explores the Palestinian-Israeli conflict from many, many angles. Silva's spies are not gentlemen, and this is no gentlemen's game. This is hard and dirty intelligence work by one of the hardest and dirtiest intelligence services on the planet. The Mossad is charged with keeping tiny Israel's formidable opponents at bay, and you don't do that by playing 'nice'. Silva's plotting is as intricate as a chess game, albeit a game where each of the chess pieces takes on a life of its own. One feels when reading Silva's books that the book is built to elucidate several characters, not merely one central character.