Portrait of an Unknown Woman

Portrait of an Unknown Woman is Dan Silva's 25th novel and his 22nd Gabrial Allon novel. He has also written one standalone novel and two books in his Michael Osborne series. At 448 pages, Portrait it is just 2 pages short of qualifying as a chunkster for the Chunkster Challenge.  The book was published on July 19, 2022.

The publisher's summary:

Legendary spy and art restorer Gabriel Allon has at long last severed ties with Israeli intelligence and settled quietly in Venice, the only place where he has ever truly known peace. His beautiful wife, Chiara, has taken over the day-to-day management of the Tiepolo Restoration Company, and their two young children are discreetly enrolled in a neighborhood scuola elementare. For his part, Gabriel spends his days wandering the streets and canals of the watery city, bidding farewell to the demons of his tragic, violent past.

But when the eccentric London art dealer Julian Isherwood asks Gabriel to investigate the circumstances surrounding the rediscovery and lucrative sale of a centuries-old painting, he is drawn into a deadly game of cat and mouse where nothing is as it seems.

Gabriel soon discovers that the work in question, a portrait of an unidentified woman attributed to Sir Anthony van Dyck, is almost certainly a fiendishly clever fake. To find the mysterious figure who painted it—and uncover a multibillion-dollar fraud at the pinnacle of the art world—Gabriel conceives one of the most elaborate deceptions of his career. If it is to succeed, he must become the very mirror image of the man he seeks: the greatest art forger the world has ever known.

Stylish, sophisticated, and ingeniously plotted, Portrait of an Unknown Woman is a wildly entertaining journey through the dark side of the art world—a place where unscrupulous dealers routinely deceive their customers and deep-pocketed investors treat great paintings as though they were just another asset class to be bought and sold at a profit. From its elegant opening to the shocking twists of its climax, the novel is a tour de force of storytelling and one of the finest pieces of heist fiction ever written. And it is still more proof that, when it comes to international intrigue and suspense, Daniel Silva has no equal.

I LOVED this novel! Daniel Silva has never written a book that wasn't fantastic and Portrait follows his successful ride. The plot is based upon the true stories of art forgers John Myatt, John Drewe, Guy Ribes and Wolfgang Beltracchi. John Myatt painted more than 250 forgeries that John Drewe sold through well established London art galleries. Ribes was able to paint approximately 1,000 Chagall and Picasso forgeries that his network sold. His German counterpart, Beltracchi, sold forgeries through all of the prominent auction houses. All four of these men have a matching character in Portrait. Most of their forgeries are still in circulation today.  

The novel was spell-binding. I read this chunky book in one sitting late one evening. I am apprehensive, though, about the retirement of Allon from the spy business. His work for the Office has catapulted the series into fame and I don't see how the series can continue much longer if he no longer works as a spy. In this installment of the series, Allon is resting after his retirement but will soon begin working as an art restorer for his wife Chiara who owns the Tiepelo Restoration Company. With Allon being sixtysomething years old and retired, where does this series go?  

5 out of 5 stars.