Scott Rhee's Reviews > Prince of Fire

It is difficult and somewhat arrogant for someone like me---a well-off middle-income American Christian suburbanite from Ohio---to have an opinion about the Middle East, especially in regards to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. I don’t even know what to call it, so I’ll just call it an “issue”. (Is “war” appropriate? Is “hatred” accurate? Is it politically incorrect to call it “genocide”? What the hell do you call it without offending either or both sides?)

There’s so much I don’t know or understand about what is going on in the Middle East, mainly because there is so much I don’t know or understand about what is going on in my own country most of the time that the events happening hundreds of thousands of miles away, across the ocean, are all just white noise. I hate to say that, but it’s the truth.

I like to pride myself on being someone who tries to stay current with what is going on in the world, but most of the time---and especially lately---I have had this frantic isolationist approach to the world. I just want to hole up with my wife and daughter, “bunker down”, stay socially distant, and the government’s “recommendation” to stay at home is strongly influencing these thoughts.

Silver lining: I’m getting a lot of reading done, especially of some books that I had set aside, with every intention of someday reading them. Now that libraries and bookstores are closed, that “someday” is now.

I was, a few months ago, on a Daniel Silva reading kick, and then I just stopped for no apparent reason. So, I’m picking up where I left off, which was the fifth book in his series featuring Israeli super-spy Gabriel Allon, “Prince of Fire”.

After a Jewish embassy is bombed in Rome, leaving many dead, Allon is called in to spearhead the manhunt of the person or persons behind the bombing. Allon is given a hand-picked team, under the supervision of his boss and mentor, Ari Shamron.

Connecting dots of similar bombings---a community center in Buenos Aires and a synagogue in Istanbul---and significant dates that are too significant to be coincidental, Allon’s team discovers that the man behind the bombing is a man whose very existence has been reduced to a myth, a man who has been shaped by a violent history between Palestinians and Israelis.

It is a history in which Allon is complicit, and one for which he feels some guilt. It is a history, on the other hand, in which his boss, Shamron, takes pride. Shamron, like his Palestinian counterpart, Yasir Arafat, are part of the old-school hard-line militants, slowly dying off, but too slow for Allon.

Going into further detail would be spoilers, but it’s needless to say that Silva has written another fast-paced edge-of-the-seat espionage action thriller, one that tackles timely subjects in an intelligent and compassionate manner.