Gabriel Allon is the primary character of Daniel Silva’s espionage and thriller series. The story centers on Israeli intelligence and kicks off in 1972 as former Israeli intelligence operator Gabriel Allon lives quietly as an art restorer. Suddenly, he’s summoned back into the game and teamed with a stunning fashion model agent.
Throughout the series Gabriel will find himself chasing a cunning terrorist, being accused of murder, revealing Vatican secrets and fighting al-Qaeda.
While there is no established timeline, you can frequently discern what is going on. This is based on some of the real-world events that occur in the books.
The series currently spans 22 primary works and is still ongoing.
Gabriel Allon Books in order
- The Kill Artist (2012)
- The English Assassin (2004)
- The Confessor (2003)
- A Death in Vienna (2004)
- Prince of Fire (2008)
- The Messenger (2008)
- The Secret Servant (2008)
- Moscow Rules (2008)
- The Defector (2009)
- The Rembrandt Affair (2010)
- Portrait of a Spy (2011)
- The Fallen Angel (2012)
- The English Girl (2013)
- The Heist (2014)
- The English Spy (2015)
- The Black Widow (2016)
- House of Spies (2017)
- The Other Woman (2018)
- The New Girl (2019)
- The Order (2020)
- The Cellist (2021)
Similar authors
- Vince Flynn’s Mitch Rapp by Vince Flynn centered on CIA black ops recruit Mitch Rapp. He helps a Cold War veteran to stop the detonation of a rogue nuclear weapon.
- Scot Harvath by Brad Thor follows America’s top spy Scot Harvath. His mission is to protect the United States with whatever means possible.
- Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch follows Bosch as he hunts down the killer of a 12-year-old boy. He is on trial in federal court on charges of murdering a suspected serial killer.
See also: Clifton Chronicles Books in Order.
Most recommended books of the series
- The Defector (4.31 Goodreads score)
- The Black Widow (4.33 Goodreads score)
- House of Spies (4.29 Goodreads score)
- The Secret Servant (4.29 Goodreads score)
- The New Girl (4.28 Goodreads score)
Latest releases in the series
Portrait of an Unknown Woman, the next book in The Gabriel Allon Series, will be released on July 19th, 2022.
Movies based on the books
MGM Television acquired the television rights to Gabriel Allon’s books in 2017. Silva and his wife are serving as executive producers.
Book summaries
The Kill Artist (2012)
After the assassination of his wife and son, Gabriel Allon retires from his brutal anti-terrorist career and loses himself in his previous cover job: art restoration. But when Tariq al-Hourani, the Palestinian terrorist responsible for his family’s death, begins a killing spree designed to destroy Middle East peace talks, Gabriel once again slips into the shadowy world of international intrigue. In a global game of hide-and-seek, the motives of Gabriel and Tariq soon become more personal than political.
The English Assassin (2004)
Israeli art restorer and occasional secret agent Gabriel Allon has a problem. A prominent Swiss banker has called him to Switzerland to restore his Raphael. The problem is that Allon finds the banker dead in front of his Raphael, and he’s the prime suspect. After some diplomatic intervention, Allon is freed. However, the banker’s daughter, wracked by guilt, tells him that her father’s cache of French Impressionist paintings, acquired under dubious circumstances during the Second World War, has been stolen by the murderers. Once Allon knows about the banker’s wartime misdeeds, he attracts the attention of a secret Swiss organization dedicated to suppressing knowledge of all such crimes, and he is pursued by a shadowy killer known only as “the Englishman.”
The Confessor (2003)
Detective Gabriel Allon returns in this stunning thriller of ancient and modern betrayal, long-buried secrets and unthinkable deeds. In Munich, writer Benjamin Stern enters his flat to find a man leafing through his research. When Stern confronts him, the man shoots him, murmurs a few words in Latin, gathers the papers and leaves. In Venice, art restorer and Israeli agent Gabriel Allon reads a message saying that Stern is dead; can he leave immediately? At the Vatican, a priest named Pietro paces in the garden, pondering the discoveries he has made, the enemies he will make, and the journey he must undertake. Silva weaves these three threads into a multilayered mystery peopled with memorable characters and distinguished by rich prose.
A Death in Vienna (2004)
Joining the ranks of Graham Greene and John le Carre, the newest master of international suspense, Daniel Silva has crafted a novel of astonishing intricacy and intelligence.Sent to Vienna to authenticate a painting, the art restorer and sometime spy Gabriel Allon is sidetracked by a photograph that throws his world upside-down. Could it really be the face of a man who during the last days of World War II had brutalized his mother on the Death March from Auschwitz?Questions abound when Allon, driven by an intensity he had not felt in years, begins to investigate, discovering in the process that the hunt for one man is a hunt for many-and a network of unimaginable evil spanning sixty years.
Prince of Fire (2008)
Few recent thriller writers have elicited the kind of critical praise that Daniel Silva has received, with his “provocative and deeply satisfying” ( The Miami Herald) novels featuring art restorer and sometime spy Gabriel Allon, “a man whose depth and passion make him one of the most fascinating characters in the genre” ( Chicago Sun-Times)Now Allon is back in Venice, when a terrible explosion in Rome leads to a disturbing personal revelation: the existence of a dossier in terrorist hands that strips away his secrets, lays bare his history. Hastily recalled home to Israel, drawn once more into the heart of a service he had once forsaken, Allon finds himself stalking an elusive master terrorist across a landscape drenched with generations of blood, the trail turning on itself until, finally, he can no longer be certain who is stalking whom.And when at last the showdown comes, it will not be Gabriel alone who is threatened with destruction – for it is not his history alone that has been laid bare.
The Messenger (2008)
Gabriel Allon, art restorer and spy, is about to face the greatest challenge of his life.Allon is recovering from his grueling showdown with a Palestinian master terrorist, when terrorism comes to find him once again. An al-Qaeda suspect is killed in London, and photographs are found on his computer – photographs that lead Israeli intelligence to suspect that al-Qaeda is planning one of its most audacious attacks ever, straight at the heart of the Vatican.Allon warns his old friend, Monsignor Luigi Donati, the pope’s private secretary, and rushes to Rome to assist in security. But what neither he nor Donati knows is that the Vatican has been thoroughly penetrated. An extraordinary enemy walks among them…and he’s just getting started.In the days and weeks to come, Allon and his colleagues will find themselves in a deadly duel of wits against one of the most dangerous men in the world – and a hunt that will take them across Europe to the Caribbean and back.But for them, there may simply not be enough of anything: enough time, enough facts, enough luck. All Allon can do is set his trap – and hope that he is not the one caught in it.
The Secret Servant (2008)
When last we encountered Gabriel Allon, the master art restorer and sometime officer of Israeli intelligence, he had just prevailed in his blood-soaked duel with Saudi terrorist financier Zizi al-Bakari. Now Gabriel is summoned once more by his masters to undertake what appears to be a routine assignment: travel to Amsterdam to purge the archives of a murdered Dutch terrorism analyst who also happened to be an asset of Israeli intelligence.But once in Amsterdam, Gabriel soon discovers a conspiracy of terror festering in the city’s Islamic underground, a plot that is about to explode on the other side of the English Channel, in the middle of London.The target of this plot is Elizabeth Halton, the daughter of the American ambassador to the Court of St. James’, who is to be brutally kidnapped. Gabriel arrives seconds too late to save her. And by revealing his face to the plot’s masterminds, his fate is sealed as well.Drawn once more into the service of American intelligence, Gabriel hurls himself into a desperate search for the missing woman as the clock ticks steadily toward the hour of her execution. It will take him from Amsterdam to Germany to the very end of Denmark. It will thrust him into an unlikely alliance with a man who has lost everything because of his devotion to Islam. It will cause him to question the morality of the tactics of his trade. And it might very well cost him his life.
Moscow Rules (2008)
The extraordinary new Gabriel Allon novel from the “gold standard” ( The Dallas Morning New) of thriller writers.Over the course of ten previous novels, Daniel Silva has established himself as one of the world’s finest writers of international intrigue and espionage- “a worthy successor to such legends as Frederick Forsyth and John le Carré” (Chicago Sun-Times)-and Gabriel Allon as “one of the most intriguing heroes of any thriller series” (The Philadelphia Inquirer).Now the death of a journalist leads Allon to Russia, where he finds that, in terms of spycraft, even he has something to learn. He’s playing by Moscow rules now.This is not the grim, gray Moscow of Soviet times but a new Moscow, awash in oil wealth and choked with bulletproof Bentleys. A Moscow where power resides once more behind the walls of the Kremlin and where critics of the ruling class are ruthlessly silenced. A Moscow where a new generation of Stalinists is plotting to reclaim an empire lost and to challenge the global dominance of its old enemy, the United States.One such man is Ivan Kharkov, a former KGB colonel who built a global investment empire on the rubble of the Soviet Union. Hidden within that empire, however, is a more lucrative and deadly business: Kharkov is an arms dealer-and he is about to deliver Russia’s most sophisticated weapons to al- Qaeda. Unless Allon can learn the time and place of the delivery, the world will see the deadliest terror attacks since 9/11-and the clock is ticking fast.
The Defector (2009)
Six months after the blood-soaked conclusion of Moscow Rules, Allon is in Umbria, trying to resume his honeymoon with his new wife, Chiara, when a colleague pays him a shocking visit. The man who saved Allon’s life in Moscow and was then resettled in England has vanished without a trace. British intelligence is sure he was a double agent all along, and they blame Allon for planting him. To discover the truth and clear his name, Allon must go immediately to London – a decision that will prove to be the most fateful of his career.In the British capital, he finds himself once more on the front lines of the secret war between East and West, where Russian spies and dissidents engage in the old game of cat and mouse. There, Allon uncovers a much greater conspiracy, a plot by an old enemy to resurrect a network of death, to bring the world to the precipice of a new confrontation, and in order to stop it, he must risk everything: his ties to an organization he has served since his youth, his new marriage . . . even his life.
The Rembrandt Affair (2010)
Determined to sever his ties with the Office, Gabriel Allon has retreated to the windswept cliffs of Cornwall with his beautiful Venetian-born wife, Chiara. But once again his seclusion is interrupted by a visitor from his tangled past: the endearingly eccentric London art dealer Julian Isherwood. As usual, Isherwood has a problem. And it is one only Gabriel can solve.In the ancient English city of Glastonbury, an art restorer has been brutally murdered and a long-lost portrait by Rembrandt mysteriously stolen. Despite his reluctance, Gabriel is persuaded to use his unique skills to search for the painting and those responsible for the crime. But as he painstakingly follows a trail of clues leading from Amsterdam to Buenos Aires and, finally, to a villa on the graceful shores of Lake Geneva, Gabriel discovers there are deadly secrets connected to the painting. And evil men behind them.Before he is done, Gabriel will once again be drawn into a world he thought he had left behind forever, and will come face-to-face with a remarkable cast of characters: a glamorous London journalist who is determined to undo the worst mistake of her career, an elusive master art thief who is burdened by a conscience, and a powerful Swiss billionaire who is known for his good deeds but may just be behind one of the greatest threats facing the world.Filled with remarkable twists and turns of plot, and told with seductive prose, The Rembrandt Affair is more than just summer entertainment of the highest order. It is a timely reminder that there are men in the world who will do anything for money.
Portrait of a Spy (2011)
Haunted by his failure to stop a suicide bomber in London, Gabriel Allon is summoned to Washington and drawn into a confrontation with the new face of global terror. At the center of the threat is an American-born cleric in Yemen who was once a paid CIA asset.Gabriel and his team devise a daring plan to destroy the network of death – from the inside – a gambit fraught with risk, both personal and professional. To succeed, Gabriel must reach into his violent past. A woman waits there, a reclusive heiress and art collector who can traverse the murky divide between Islam and the West. She is the daughter of an old enemy, and together they form an unlikely and dangerous bond.
The Fallen Angel (2012)
After narrowly surviving his last operation, Gabriel Allon, the wayward son of Israeli intelligence, has taken refuge behind the walls of the Vatican, where he is restoring one of Caravaggio’s greatest masterpieces. But early one morning he is summoned to St. Peter’s Basilica by Monsignor Luigi Donati, the all-powerful private secretary to his Holiness Pope Paul VII; the body of a beautiful woman lies broken beneath Michelangelo’s magnificent dome. The Vatican police suspect suicide, though Gabriel believes otherwise. So, it seems, does Donati. But the monsignor is fearful that a public inquiry might inflict another scandal on the Church, and so he calls upon Gabriel to quietly pursue the truth—with one caveat.”Rule number one at the Vatican,” Donati said. “Don’t ask too many questions.”Gabriel learns that the dead woman had uncovered a dangerous secret—a secret that threatens a global criminal enterprise that is looting timeless treasures of antiquity and selling them to the highest bidder. But there is more to this network than just greed. A mysterious operative is plotting an act of sabotage that will plunge the world into a conflict of apocalyptic proportions .
The English Girl (2013)
Madeline Hart is a rising star in Britain’s governing party: beautiful, intelligent, driven by an impoverished childhood to succeed. But she is also a woman with a dark secret: she is the lover of Prime Minister Jonathan Lancaster. Somehow, her kidnappers have learned of the affair, and they intend to make the British leader pay dearly for his sins. Fearful of a scandal that will destroy his career, Lancaster decides to handle the matter privately rather than involve the British police. It is a risky gambit, not only for the prime minister but also for the operative who will conduct the search.You have seven days, or the girl dies.Enter Gabriel Allon—master assassin, art restorer and spy—who is no stranger to dangerous assignments or political intrigue. With the clock ticking, Gabriel embarks on a desperate attempt to bring Madeline home safely. His mission takes him from the criminal underworld of Marseilles to an isolated valley in the mountains of Provence to the stately if faded corridors of power in London—and, finally, to a pulse-pounding climax in Moscow, a city of violence and spies where there is a long list of men who wish Gabriel dead.
The Heist (2014)
Sometimes the best way to find a stolen masterpiece is to steal another one….Master novelist Daniel Silva has thrilled listeners with 16 thoughtful and gripping spy novels featuring a diverse cast of compelling characters and ingenious plots that have taken them around the globe and back – from the United States to Europe, Russia to the Middle East. His brilliant creation, Gabriel Allon – art restorer, assassin, spy – has joined the pantheon of great fictional secret agents, including George Smiley, Jack Ryan, Jason Bourne, and Simon Templar.Following the success of his smash hit The English Girl, Daniel Silva returns with another powerhouse of a novel that showcases his outstanding skill and brilliant imagination, and is sure to be a must-listen for both his multitudes of fans and growing legions of converts.
The English Spy (2015)
Then there was The English Girl.Now comes The English Spy….Master novelist Daniel Silva has thrilled readers with 17 thoughtful and gripping spy novels featuring a diverse cast of compelling characters and ingenious plots that have taken them around the globe and back – from the United States to Europe, Russia to the Middle East. His brilliant hero, Gabriel Allon – art restorer, assassin, spy – has joined the pantheon of great fictional secret agents, including George Smiley, Jack Ryan, Jason Bourne, and Simon Templar.Following the success of his smash hit The Heist, Daniel Silva returns with another blockbuster – a powerhouse novel that showcases his outstanding skill and brilliant imagination and is sure to be a must -listen for both his multitudes of fans and growing legions of converts.
The Black Widow (2016)
Gabriel Allon, the art restorer, spy, and assassin described as the most compelling fictional creation “since Ian Fleming put down his martini and invented James Bond” (Rocky Mountain News), is poised to become the chief of Israel’s secret intelligence service. But on the eve of his promotion, events conspire to lure him into the field for one final operation. ISIS has detonated a massive bomb in the Marais district of Paris, and a desperate French government wants Gabriel to eliminate the man responsible before he can strike again.Acclaimed novelist Daniel Silva has thrilled, entertained, and educated listeners with 18 thoughtful and gripping spy novels featuring a diverse cast of compelling characters and ingenious plots that have taken them around the globe and back – from the United States to Europe, Russia to the Middle East. From its shocking opening to its explosive denouement in Washington, DC, The Black Widow reveals itself as Silva’s most timely and powerful novel yet. Following the success of his smash hit The English Spy, this electrifying thriller showcases Silva’s consummate skill and brilliant imagination and is sure to be a must-listen for his multitude of current and future fans.
House of Spies (2017)
trail of carnage through London’s glittering West End. The attack is a brilliant feat of planning and secrecy, but with one loose thread.The thread leads Gabriel Allon and his team of operatives to the south of France and to the gilded doorstep of Jean-Luc Martel and Olivia Watson. A beautiful former British fashion model, Olivia pretends not to know that the true source of Martel’s enormous wealth is drugs. And Martel, likewise, turns a blind eye to the fact he is doing business with a man whose objective is the very destruction of the West. Together, under Gabriel’s skilled hand, they will become an unlikely pair of heroes in the global war on terror.Written in seductive and elegant prose, the story moves swiftly from the glamour of Saint-Tropez to the grit of Casablanca and, finally, to an electrifying climax that will leave listeners breathless.
The Other Woman (2018)
In an isolated village in the mountains of Andalusia, a mysterious Frenchwoman begins work on a dangerous memoir. It is the story of a man she once loved in the Beirut of old, and a child taken from her in treason’s name. The woman is the keeper of the Kremlin’s most closely guarded secret. Long ago, the KGB inserted a mole into the heart of the West – a mole who stands on the doorstep of ultimate power. Only one man can unravel the conspiracy: Gabriel Allon, the legendary art restorer and assassin who serves as the chief of Israel’s vaunted secret intelligence service. Gabriel has battled the dark forces of the new Russia before, at great personal cost. Now he and the Russians will engage in a final epic showdown, with the fate of the postwar global order hanging in the balance.
The New Girl (2019)
She was covered from head to toe in expensive wool and plaid, the sort of stuff one saw at the Burberry boutique in Harrods. She carried a leather bookbag rather than a nylon backpack. Her patent leather ballet slippers were glossy and bright. She was proper, the new girl, modest. But there was something else about her….At an exclusive private school in Switzerland, mystery surrounds the identity of the beautiful raven-haired girl who arrives each morning in a motorcade fit for a head of state. She is said to be the daughter of a wealthy international businessman. In truth, her father is Khalid bin Mohammed, the much-maligned crown prince of Saudi Arabia. Once celebrated for his daring social and religious reforms, he is now reviled for his role in the murder of a dissident journalist. And when his only child is brutally kidnapped, he turns to the one man he can trust to find her before it is too late.What’s done cannot be undone….Gabriel Allon, the legendary chief of Israeli intelligence, has spent most of his life fighting terrorists, including the murderous jihadists financed by Saudi Arabia. Prince Khalid – or KBM, as he is known – has pledged to finally break the bond between the Kingdom and radical Islam. For that reason alone, Gabriel regards him as a valuable, if flawed, partner. Together, they will become unlikely allies in a deadly secret war for control of the Middle East. The life of a child, and the throne of Saudi Arabia, hang in the balance. Both men have made their share of enemies. And both have everything to lose.Filled with dark humor, breathtaking twists of plot, and an unforgettable cast of characters, The New Girl is both a thrilling, pause-resisting tale of entertainment and a sophisticated study of political alliances and great-power rivalries in a dangerous world. And it is once again proof that Gabriel Allon is “one of fiction’s greatest spies” (Kirkus) and Daniel Silva is “quite simply the best” (Kansas City Star) writer of foreign intrigue and suspense at work today.
The Order (2020)
It was nearly one a.m. by the time he crawled into bed. Chiara was reading a novel, oblivious to the television, which was muted. On the screen was a live shot of St. Peter’s Basilica. Gabriel raised the volume and learned that an old friend had died…. Gabriel Allon has slipped quietly into Venice for a much-needed holiday with his wife and two young children. But when Pope Paul VII dies suddenly, Gabriel is summoned to Rome by the Holy Father’s loyal private secretary, Archbishop Luigi Donati. A billion Catholic faithful have been told that the pope died of a heart attack. Donati, however, has two good reasons to suspect his master was murdered. The Swiss Guard who was standing watch outside the papal apartments the night of the pope’s death is missing. So, too, is the letter the Holy Father was writing during the final hours of his life. A letter that was addressed to Gabriel.While researching in the Vatican Secret Archives, I came upon a most remarkable book….The book is a long-suppressed gospel that calls into question the accuracy of the New Testament’s depiction of one of the most portentous events in human history. For that reason alone, the Order of St. Helena will stop at nothing to keep it out of Gabriel’s hands. A shadowy Catholic society with ties to the European far right, the Order is plotting to seize control of the papacy. And it is only the beginning.As the cardinals gather in Rome for the start of the conclave, Gabriel sets out on a desperate search for proof of the Order’s conspiracy and for a long-lost gospel with the power to put an end to 2,000 years of murderous hatred. His quest will take him from the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, to a monastery in Assisi, to the hidden depths of the Secret Archives, and finally to the Sistine Chapel, where he will witness an event no outsider has ever before seen – the sacred passing of the Keys of St. Peter to a newly elected pope.Swiftly paced and elegantly rendered, The Order will hold listeners spellbound, from its opening passages to its breathtaking final twist of plot. It is a novel of friendship and faith in a perilous and uncertain world. And it is still more proof that Daniel Silva is his generation’s finest writer of suspense and international intrigue.
The Cellist (2021)
Viktor Orlov had a longstanding appointment with death. Once Russia’s richest man, he now resides in splendid exile in London, where he has waged a tireless crusade against the authoritarian kleptocrats who have seized control of the Kremlin. His mansion in Chelsea’s exclusive Cheyne Walk is one of the most heavily protected private dwellings in London. Yet somehow, on a rainy summer evening, in the midst of a global pandemic, Russia’s vengeful president finally manages to cross Orlov’s name off his kill list.Before him was the receiver from his landline telephone, a half-drunk glass of red wine, and a stack of documents….The documents are contaminated with a deadly nerve agent. The Metropolitan Police determine that they were delivered to Orlov’s home by one of his employees, a prominent investigative reporter from the anti-Kremlin Moskovskaya Gazeta. And when the reporter slips from London hours after the killing, MI6 concludes she is a Moscow Center assassin who has cunningly penetrated Orlov’s formidable defenses.But Gabriel Allon, who owes his very life to Viktor Orlov, believes his friends in British intelligence are dangerously mistaken. His desperate search for the truth will take him from London to Amsterdam and eventually to Geneva, where a private intelligence service controlled by a childhood friend of the Russian president is using KGB-style “active measures” to undermine the West from within. Known as the Haydn Group, the unit is plotting an unspeakable act of violence that will plunge an already divided America into chaos and leave Russia unchallenged. Only Gabriel Allon, with the help of a brilliant young woman employed by the world’s dirtiest bank, can stop it.
