Daniel Silva The Defector Hardcover

Unusually for the Allon series, this novel is a sequel to the previous one (Moscow Rules), with many of the same characters, in particular the antagonist, Ivan Kharkov. The beginning finds Gabriel Allon and his new wife Chiara resuming the honeymoon in rural Umbria which was interrupted by the events of Moscow Rules; Gabriel is again restoring a painting for the Vatican, this time Guido Reni's "Crucifixion of St Peter." When Grigori Bulganov, the Russian defector who had saved Gabriel's life at the end of Moscow Rules, goes missing from his new home in London, Gabriel assumes he was kidnapped by Kharkov and begins to work to bring him back. Then Chiara herself is kidnapped, and Gabriel's resolve becomes more intense. To rescue her, he must call not only on his own Israeli team of specialists but on the highest levels of the American, British, and (thanks to a massive bribe) Russian governments. Although they are rescued, Gabriel and Chiara are traumatized.