A Death in Vienna
By Daniel Silva
Putnam, $25.95
416 pages, ISBN 0399151435

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REVIEW BY DERRICK M. NORMAN

Mario Delvecchio is one of the world's most respected art restorers. His current project is Bellini's altarpiece in the Church of San Giovanni Crisostomo in Venice. But when a bomb goes off at the office of Wartime Claims and Inquiries in Vienna, Mario assumes his real name, Gabriel Allon, and his part-time job—assassin for Israeli intelligence.

This third volume of Daniel Silva's trilogy dealing with the unfinished business of the Holocaust takes us from the streets of Vienna to the innermost secrets of the Vatican to Argentina and back. The first book in this cycle, The English Assassin, dealt with Nazi art looting and the collaboration of the Swiss banking system. The second book, The Confessor, examined the role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and the silence of Pope Pius XII. This third book is based, like its predecessors, on actual events.

Is it possible that even today a Nazi war criminal is living in Vienna? What does he know about Aktion 1005, the attempt to destroy all evidence of the Holocaust? A Death in Vienna gives a chilling view of both the horrors of war and the politics of Austria. What is possible in today's world when the secrets of the past cannot be contained? The sins of the fathers can control the secrets of power and politics.

The search for the truth leads Gabriel to his mother's wartime experience at the Birkenau concentration camp, and he experiences her life through her own testimony found at Yad Vashm, the world's foremost center for Holocaust research and documentation in Israel. As he discovers the secrets of his family's past, other truths unfold.

What do the CIA and Russian intelligence have to do with the Vienna bombing? Is there ever justification for protecting a murderer? With Silva, there are often more questions than answers, but there is always a relentless search for the truth.

Derrick Norman is voracious reader who spent many years in publishing and enjoys a good game of golf.