The Secret Servant, by Daniel Silva

This audiobook was obtained from Overdrive Audio through the Alachua County Public Library. It was 10 hours and 47 minutes long, and was narrated by Phil Gigante.

This is the 7th novel by Silva to feature Gabriel Allon, an Israeli intelligence agent who wishes the world were a safer place so he can go back to work as an art restorer. But, once Allon is on the job, he is totally there, and it's bad guys beware.

In this novel, Allon is sent on a humdrum assignment to purge the papers of an Israeli intelligence asset after he is murdered by an Islamic nut job. While he is there, he finds that he is being shadowed by a man who turns out to be a former terrorist asset who is disillusioned and wants to make sure his name is not in any of the documents either. Through this chance encounter, Allon begins to unravel a plot to kidnap the daughter of the American Ambassador to the Court of Saint James in London. He is almost in time to stop it, but not quite.

Working with the CIA and MI5, Allon is now trying to rescue the woman, and his chance encounter with the former terrorist is indeed fortuitous: one of the kidnappers is his son.

If you are one of those people who is deeply ambivalent about offending radical Muslims or putting the squeeze on suspected terrorists, you will not like this. This is the kind of book Jack Bauer reads on vacation. And that is not the only reason I give it 4 stars. The writing is top notch for the genre and it is very thought provoking.