Daniel Silva

Silva introduced Gabriel Allon, restorer of art and sometime Israeli secret agent, in The Kill Artist (2000), beginning a string of best-selling and critically blessed stories of international intrigue. Informed by his own years as a journalist stationed in the Middle East, Silva's novels unfold across Moscow, Tel Aviv, Geneva, Paris, Lake Como, Saint-Tropez and London in the tradition of John Le Carre and Graham Greene, to whom he is now compared.

His latest is The Defector (2009), sequel to Moscow Rules.

Spy story resources:

From NPR, a spy-obsessed librarian picks her favorites

In "Operation Spy Novel", Fred Kaplan reconsiders le Carre's Absolute Friends. [Slate 2/13/04]

The first modern spy novelist: "Eric Ambler and the invention of the spy novel." By Stephen Metcalf [Slate 5/25/06]

Top-grossing spy movies

Official CIA website, which offers a virtual tour of Langley headquarters.

England's MI5 website includes a history of its Thames House headquarters.