I DON'T HIDE MY REVIEWS, BUT THEY DO CONTAIN SPOILERS.This is in Silva's line of Michael Osbourne books. Osbourne is a former CIA agent who has rejoined the service. He's done so because his father-in-law, a retired U.S. senator, has been named to an ambassador post to Ireland, and Osbourne senses danger.Osbourne never crosses paths with Silva's main protagonist -- on-again, off-again Israeli agent-assassin Gabriel Allon, who stars in most Silva novels.But the two men do have in common their encounters with commercial assassin, Jean-Paul Delaroche, who was trained behind the Iron Curtain, and is literally a bastard. Initially Delaroche was sent to the West as a "sleeper"(still in his teens) for political missions, but now he's a free-market hired gun.Delaroche -- who seemed pathologically dispassionate when executing people or dealing with his handlers -- is, sadly, not the worst bad guy in this book. (As an aside, Delaroche likes to paint, just like Allon does/did. These days Allon does art restoration, but little original work.)Osbourne and Delaroche form an impromptu alliance toward the book's end, as both struggle to be free of the cabal that is trying to rile up Irishmen again to violence (Prods vs. the papists, as usual).The cabal, it turns out, is a shadowy "working group" of national intelligence services and major criminal and terrorist interests, etc. These seemingly odd bedfellows use the shadow group to outsource killings that would be too politically sensitive for any government agency to take on, and to instigate negative events that somehow advance a nation's secret agenda. In "Marching Season," for example, the group decides to kill a new peace movement in Ireland that would be "bad" for the illegal weapons industry. Near book's end, back in the States, Delaroche attempts to assassinate Osbourne's father in law, but Osbourne surprisingly lets the killer escape. That's because Osbourne has figured out who hired Delaroche. Osbourne instead reserves his ire and energy, working behind the scenes to dislodge from American intelligence services the career official (a woman) who was part of the same shadow group, which had commissioned the father-in-law's death. She's the U.S. "delegate" to the cabal, and Allon's revered Israeli boss, Ari Shamron. (It kills me to think that Shamron, who appears in all the Allon books, consorts with such dreck.)Delaroche eventually repays Osbourne's kindness by unilaterally (without pay) taking out the woman, after she suddenly retires and moves to Europe.I was touched by the moment in the book when Osbourne muses that he and Delaroche are quite similar after all. It was only chance that assigned Osbourne the role of patriot and Delaroche the role of criminal killer. They use the same skill set for different ends.The book's close suggests that Delaroche is able to retire from his career as a killer, and even form a meaningful relationship with an Irish woman terrorist who seems to want out from all the death and violence. Knowing Silva, however -- who's expert at re-purposing his characters -- I wonder if the woman, named Rebecca, will go the distance in her relationship with Delaroche.
Michael Osbourne is back but this story is about October and the Ulster Freedom Brigade as much as it is about the former CIA agent.The story was a bit tricky since I don't know much about Northern Ireland politics. I had to look up the exact reference of "Ulster" and I constantly felt confused about which side was which. I also never figured out if the Black Friday treaty was real or made up for the purposes of this book. But it was a quick read and somewhat more satisfying than the first simply because I like that Osbourne and October "teamed up" at the end.A few other thoughts:1. Michael and Elizabeth's twins were referred to by name just once in the entire story. 2. The Director mentions October is being asked to carry out the current task - but didn't he promise the Society in "Mark of the Assassin" that he'd be taken care of?3. Apparently Monica Tyler is no longer with Mitchell since he's not in this book at all.4. Nice callback to Astrid's boat. Bu is October still paying for it to be in the slip in Amsterdam?5. I knew that October would kill the plastic surgeon before it happened. I guess that means we have a good sense of who that character is from the other book when he killed his former handler!
What do You think about The Marching Season (2004)?
Daniel Silva has become the go-to guy for realistic espionage thrillers; his Gabriel Allon series has been cited by intelligence professionals as an example of how to do the business right. So what in hell happened with The Marching Season?This was his third published novel; maybe he was still learning the ropes. There's nothing technically wrong with his prose. The settings are well-realized, and some of the ancillary characters present well. That's to be expected of Silva, and that bit he delivers.The parts you don't expect from him? A secret international cabal manipulating world events for profit, essentially SPECTRE without Blofeld. Hyper-competent, omni-talented secret agent men as the protagonist and one of the villains. Lengthy biographical info-dumps on each character as he/she is introduced (and not just major characters, either). Complex special operations that take mere minutes or hours to assemble, not the days or weeks that Allon (and real life) requires. It was somewhere after Our Hero’s second tête-à-tête with the Queen (yes, the one with the corgis) – or was it his briefing with Tony Blair? or the pally conversation with the President? – that I spent much the rest of the book checking the cover to see if it was written by one of Ludlum’s ghostwriters.If you must read this, expect a typical pulp thriller, not the work you get with the Allon series or even The Unlikely Spy, Silva’s freshman hommage to Ken Follett. There are some good parts, but there’s a lot that will get your head shaking. I think I’ll give the prequel (The Mark of the Assassin) a pass and go back to the Silva books that have marked him as a successor to Le Carre.
—Lance Charnes
A new terrorist group in Northern Ireland takes action to disrupt the newly signed peace accord. In an effort to support the British, the American president appoints his respected nemisis, Douglas Cannon, to the position of Ambassador to the Court of St. James. Cannon's son-in-law, retired CIA operative Michael Osbourne, is recruited to work the Northern Ireland desk in the CIA, in an effort to quell the terrorist group's activities. Osbourne uncovers a plot to kill Cannon, and working with Britain's MI5 (British version of the FBI), foils the plot and kills the all but one of the principals in the terrorist group. Enter a third party. A clandestine group of espionage/terrorists exist to "keep the pot boiling" in the world in order to generate business for their membership. One of their members is a highly placed official in the CIA, and one is in a similar position in Britain's MI6 (Britain's version of the CIA). They decide to back the remaining terrorist in her effort to kill Cannon, and they hire October, an assassin who (in an earlier book, no doubt) tried and failed to kill Michael Osbourne. October tries and fails to kill Cannon. In his attempt to escape capture, he has the opportunity to kill Osbourne. He spares him in return for Osbourne's promise to help him escape, provided he provides details on the CIA person who is in league with the rogue espionage/terrorist group. Things wind up with plenty of room for a follow-up book.
—Tom
Rereading Daniel Silva’s early work has been doubly enjoyable. First, the stories were well written, but more importantly to me was to see how Silva drew from the antagonist, Delaroche, from The Mark of The Assassin and The Marching Season, and parlayed him into Gabriel Allon in the future works. While Delaroche admits to being an assassin, he states on more than one occasion that he is not a murderer. Also, Delaroche has talent as a painter and, of course Allon has the cover of being an art restoration expert in that series and considers himself an assassin, not a murderer. Finally I, as an avid reader, am thankful that Silva abandoned his Osbourne protagonist in favor of Allon. The Israeli assassin and art restorer is much more interesting than another CIA operative. as far as thrillers go.
—Jim A
