''The Rembrandt Affair'' is a 2010
spy novel by
Daniel Silva.
[
It is the tenth in the Gabriel Allon series, based in the world of Israeli intelligence.
]
Plot
Gabriel Allon and his team seek a lost Rembrandt
Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consid ...
whose previous owners have included both Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
victims and terrorists. In addition to regularly recurring characters, Julian Isherwood in his role as a gallery owner features prominently.
Background
Part of the reason that Silva delved into the topic of art theft was the realization of the impact it has on the art world. Beginning with the role it played during and after the Holocaust, art theft has continued into the present. Each year, between four and six billion dollars' worth of art and antiquities are stolen, ranking it as the fourth-most lucrative crime behind drug trafficking
A drug is any chemical substance that causes a change in an organism's physiology or psychology when consumed. Drugs are typically distinguished from food and substances that provide nutritional support. Consumption of drugs can be via insuffla ...
, arms dealing
The arms industry, also known as the arms trade, is a global industry which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology. It consists of a commercial industry involved in the research and development, engineering, production, and servi ...
, and money laundering
Money laundering is the process of concealing the origin of money, obtained from illicit activities such as drug trafficking, corruption, embezzlement or gambling, by converting it into a legitimate source. It is a crime in many jurisdictions ...
. Silva touched on arms trafficking when dealing with the crimes of Ivan Kharkov in '' The Defector'' and ''Moscow Rules
The Moscow rules are rules-of-thumb said to have been developed during the Cold War to be used by spies and others working in Moscow.
The rules are associated with Moscow because the city developed a reputation as being a particularly harsh loc ...
''. Silva was also intrigued by the greed that drove people such as Bernie Madoff
Bernard Lawrence Madoff ( ; April 29, 1938April 14, 2021) was an American fraudster and financier who was the admitted mastermind of the largest Ponzi scheme in history, worth about $64.8 billion. He was at one time chairman of the NASDA ...
and he, and some other key figures in the Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...
were the inspiration behind this book's villain, Martin Landesmann.[
]
Reception
Like others in Silva's Gabriel Allon series, this book was a ''New York Times'' bestseller. ''The Rembrandt Affair'' marked Silva's last book with Putnam after he signed a deal with HarperCollins
HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
following Rembrandt's publication.
International titles
Portuguese: ''O Caso Rembrandt''. (''The Rembrandt Affair''). (2011).
References
External links
*
Novels by Daniel Silva
2010 American novels
G. P. Putnam's Sons books
{{2010s-spy-novel-stub