Moscow Rules is num­ber eleven in Silva’s excit­ing Gabriel Allon Israeli espi­onage series.

Here we find our hero try­ing to out­wit Russ­ian ille­gal arms deal­er Ivan Kharkov, an ex KGB colonel whose shady trans­ac­tions threat­en to endan­ger the West­ern world. This proves to be very tricky since the Rus­sians are noto­ri­ous experts at spy craft. We get to peek at the lifestyle of the new­ly rich Russ­ian upper crust, with their for­eign vil­las and fan­cy cars. Allon is now mar­ried to the beau­ti­ful Ital­ian Mossad agent Chiara and there is some awk­ward dia­logue between them, while the ban­ter between Allon and his loy­al team of Israeli cohorts is great. Allon is con­tin­u­al­ly pres­sured by his long­time boss, the near-myth­i­cal Ari Sham­ron, and he’s still shy­ing away from the inevitable pro­mo­tion to take Shamron’s place in the orga­ni­za­tion. The descrip­tion of Allon’s pas­sion­ate work as an art restor­er is fas­ci­nat­ing. I found this book to be slight­ly less meaty than the pre­vi­ous ten but still a won­der­ful, grip­ping read. Mr. Sil­va, bring on num­ber twelve!