Moscow Rules

Moscow Rules

By Daniel Silva

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.

Daniel Silva is very proficient when it when it comes to taking current events and incorporating them into his thrillers. Moscow Rules, another Gabriel Allon mystery, follows this same pattern in this page-turning book.

Several Russian journalists are murdered when they try to uncover the truth about Ivan Kharkov, a former KGB agent turned “real estate developer, venture capitalist, and international arms trafficker.” Kharkov is suspected of selling arms to African nations, knowing that they will in turn sell them to Al-Qaeda. One Russian journalist demands to speak with Gabriel Allon, an agent with the Israeli Secret Service. The only way to get proof of Kharkov’s actions is to get information from someone close to him. But that is almost impossible as his entourage never goes anywhere without well-trained security. This mission will take Allon from Italy to Israel, France, Switzerland, and Russia. This mission also involves not just the Israeli Secret Service, but the CIA, MI5 and the French intelligence network. Just when I thought I had it all figured out, Silva threw a real curve.

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