A Death in Vienna by Daniel Silva
A Death in Vienna (2004) by Daniel Silva is a spy novel and story of international intrigue featuring recurring character former Mossad agent and art restorer, Gabriel Allon. This novel is the fourth in a series of books featuring the cool Israeli agent with an artistic sensibility, the killer with a conscience-the man set on restoring the Jewish people after the Holocaust’s destructive effects just like a restoration artist, one brushstroke at a time, righting wrongs and killing one enemy of the Jewish people after another. He has been the main character in seven books to date, the most recent of which- The Secret Servant- was published in July 2007. This novel is also the tenth book in my personal Jewish Book Festival 2007-2008, which I officially announced on November 13, 2007 when I reviewed The World To Come by Dara Horn.
In spite of good intentions to read the series in chronological order, I have found myself meandering quite a bit in this series. First I read The Confessor (in Danish translation, Vatikænetsmand)-a few years ago, and was drawn to Allon’s character. I have since then collected his books intending to read the entire series in chronological order. While waiting for book 1 in the series to arrive (The Kill Artist, 2000), I read book 2-The English Assassin. Then when I should have picked up book 1, I mistakenly started book 4, the book I am currently reviewing.
I can assure anyone who is nervous about committing to a series of books that it is not necessary to read these books in order. And neither is it necessary to read all of them. Daniel Silva makes it easy to become acquainted with the recurring characters, by reinforcing information from one novel to the next, and by keeping the characters alive with new information and insight into their personalities. In addition to main character Gabriel Allon, there are quite a few others in his fictive universe who one has the pleasure to build up a relationship with over the course of the series.
A Death in Vienna tells the story of Gabriel Allon’s pursuit of former Nazi officer Erich Radek who had been living in Austria his former homeland under alias as prosperous business man Ludwig Vogel. Radek, who had been instrumental in creating Hitler’s Final Solution, was recognized by Max Klein, an elderly survivor of Auschwitz concentration and extermination camp. Klein had already contacted a Holocaust aid agency with the intent of exposing Radek and his son, who was in the process of campaigning for the position of Austria’s chancellorship. Both Klein and the agency suffered tragedy on account of his attempted exposure of Radek- Klein is strangled brutally in his apartment, and the agency is bombed, killing two young women employees and leaving the head of the agency in a coma.
Gabriel Allon investigates the case and uncovers how Radek and many other World War II war criminals escaped being brought to justice at the conclusion of the war. Like other former Nazis who could be helpful to the USA under the Cold War, Radek was given an alias by the CIA when he served under Reinhard Gehlen who built up the USA’s intelligence service in Eastern Europe from the ashes of the Nazi service he ran.
There were a number of powerful scenes in this book that detailed the horrors of Jewish suffering during the Holocaust. Especially vivid was the written testimony of Gabriel’s mother Irene, which her son discovered at the Yad Vashem memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Jerusalem. Another graphic scene was the depiction of life in the concentration camp given by Erich Radek after his capture by Allon.
Radek, at the end of the story, is imprisoned for life in Israel and documents his story on behalf of the Jewish people in the archives of Yad Vashem.
The reference in the story’s title A Death in Vienna was a bit ambiguous as it could have referred to several different deaths. Initially I thought this might have referred to the explosive deaths detailed at the start of the novel at Eli Lavon’s Wartime Claims and Inquiries office in Vienna. Tragic as the situation was, and catalytic as it was to the novel, since two young women, Reveka and Sarah, were killed, the title should have been A Couple of Deaths in Vienna or Two Deaths in Vienna, perhaps Two Deaths and a Coma in Vienna, considering Eli Lavon’s resultant long-term coma. More appropriately it seems to refer to the death of Max Klein who tried to expose Radek’s crimes and his connection to son Peter Metzler, candidate for the chancellorship. Max Klein's courage to act against the politically powerful Radek in the repressive right-wing Austrian society catalyzed Allon to take the case and get to the bottom of the dastardly treatments depicted in the novel.
Another important reference in the title is that to the death of Allon’s young son Dani who lost his life in a car bombing thirteen years prior in Vienna. Allon has harbored guilt feelings about his son’s death and the catastrophic disablement of his wife. He has dedicated his life to the restoration of art and the restoration of others, but he has never been able to restore his own life or to forgive himself for what he could not deter.
A Death In Vienna is the third in a cycle of three novels having to do with the “unfinished business of the Holocaust”. After the introductory The Kill Artist, Allon engages in the unfinished business first of Swiss complicity in handling Nazi wealth and enabling the war’s continuance in The English Assassin (2002); then of the Vatican’s aid especially to escaping Nazi war criminals and of the historic anti-Semitism that legitimized Hitler’s regime to the worldwide Catholic population in The Confessor (2003); and finally of Austria’s role as a fountainhead for Nazi leadership and of harboring a continuing Aryan-supremacist spirit in A Death in Vienna (2004).
Silva’s vision in this book is more brutal for me than in the other two books of this cycle. It is more emotional and also more satisfying. His prose is direct, and not overly embellished; his images are poignant. I enjoy getting into Gabriel Allon’s international world of suspense and danger. It is an exciting fantasy that is balanced with a very harsh and grim reality, and it is the reality of my own people. Gabriel Allon is a damaged man that is trying to do good for his people, for his nation and for those close to him. He stoically neglects his own restoration while attempting to set his world in order. It’s a tall order. Gabriel Allon is constantly drawn back into the fray because there is always some unfinished business that needs attending to.
I am currently reading The Kill Artist, which is Daniel Silva’s first Gabriel Allon novel.