The English Assassin

Gabriel Allon is sent to Zurich to restore a Raphael for a reclusive millionaire banker, and arrives to find the man murdered at the foot of it. A collection of priceless, illicitly acquired Impressionist paintings has vanished, and Allon's handlers reveal that the collector had been silenced by the Israeli intelligence service itself. Now Allon must pursue a rogue assassin of his own creation across Switzerland while confronting the country's wartime past and its continuing financial complicity.

John Lee has narrated the Gabriel Allon series from its earliest installments, and his performance here captures Silva's characteristic blend of art history, moral weight, and genuine thriller mechanics. His voice gives Switzerland's landscape of banks and ski resorts its appropriate quality of beautiful menace. Lee's portrayal of Allon's relationship with the Impressionist collection, the way a restorer's eye makes him see both the beauty and the crime in the same objects, is one of the audiobook's quiet pleasures.