Daniel Silva: The Order, Harper Collins, 9780008280833, C format paperback, available,

Summertime, thriller time and Daniel Silva is one of my favorite thriller writers. Luckily he has produced a new one for the summer, “The Order”, which is set in the Vatican and of course has Gabriel Allon as his chief protagonist. Apart from being the head spymaster at the Israeli intelligence, he is also a master art restorer. He had befriended liberal Pope Paul VII when he saved his life during an assault; his sudden death raises a lot of suspicion whether it was indeed a natural one.  Since an ultra-conservative, influential order seems to have connections into the highest offices of the Holy Church planning to gain the upper hand and the late Pope’s personal Swiss Guard has also disappeared,  Luigi Donati, the pope’ personal secretary and also a friend of Allon summons Gabriel to Rome to investigate.   They soon discover that a secret book of an apocryphal gospel which was hidden in the secret Vatican archives until it founds its way into the dead pope’s hand, has disappeared as well.  

Having studied a few semesters of comparative religious sciences myself,  I was fascinated and familiar with the academic doubts raised about the accuracy of the gospels still taught  by the Catholic Church and of the existence of apocryphal ones who are disregarded and would cast a somewhat different light on many teachings of the church. 

 Silva cleverly spins a complicated plot combining several  murders,  the secret dealings of the Vatican including the election process for a new pope  and the accuracy of the gospels still taught by the Catholic church. Silva’s author notes are particularly interesting and illuminating; had a fun time reading “The Order”.   

Curtis Sittenfeld: Rodham, 9780593230527, Penguin Random House USA, large format paperback, International edition

Hats off to Curtis Sittenfeld for writing such a fascinating tale of  what-could-have-been had Hilary Clinton not married charismatic Bill Clinton.  Feeling somewhat ambivalent about this book to begin with, I ended up feeling very enthusiastic about this clever novel.  It could have easily turned into a disaster by a less skillful author particularly since everyone knows the real life story of the actual Hilary Clinton and how her political career has turned out.  But Curtis Sittenfeld does a masterful job in imagining a life where Hilary walks out on Bill Clinton after dumping a promising professional start for him ending up living with Bill in Arkansas until  finding proof of his repeated infidelities before their  scheduled marriage. 

Taking some historical facts into account, Sittenfeld composes a fascinating fictional tale of the next forty years in Hilary Clinton’s political and private life which made me laugh out loud a few times and kept me hooked and surprised to the very end.  She explores the loneliness and steely determination needed by a woman when throwing her hat into the ring for high powered positions or how to this day women are judged so much more harshly than man when entering politics. 

Great narration and plot, loved the fictional development she invents for such prominent characters as Bill Clinton or Donald Trump. I will not reveal more since it would thoroughly spoil the fun reading this fictional narration of a sometimes very different Hilary Clinton but then again characteristic of the real life Hilary appear.

Andrew Wilson:  Death in a Desert Land, Simon & Schuster, 9781471173509, paperback

How I found out about this book I cannot exactly remember but it has provided delightful reading pleasures during the last week and is a perfect escapist summer read.  If you love Agatha Christie novels, particularly Poirot, this is your book.  

Agatha Christie is the star detective herself in this cleverly plotted novel set in Baghdad and Ur in 1928, loosely based around actual people and facts in Agatha Christie’s life.  Agatha is sent out to Iraq by British Intelligence officials to investigate the death of Gertrude Bell, the great traveller and linguist who had supposedly died of a drug overdose in Baghdad.  During her investigation she finds a letter Gertrude wrote but never mailed that she was afraid someone was out to kill her mentioning  that her murderer could probably be found at an archeological excavation site in Ur. Agatha packs her bags and heads for Ur where Leonard Woolley heads a promising archeological dig for the British Museum and is greeted by some very eccentric British and American visitors and helpers at the camp. When a murder takes place and Katherine, Woolley’s difficult wife, is accused of having killed Sarah Archer, the daughter of a wealthy American couple whom she greatly disliked and considered a rival, Agatha finds herself entangled in an explosive, dangerous situation forcing her to start her own investigation.  The plot is cleverly spun and in true Agatha Christie fashion naturally untangled at the end. Loved it!