The Unlikely Spy

by Daniel Silva

Overview

#1 New York Times bestselling author Daniel Silva’s celebrated debut novel, The Unlikely Spy, is “A ROLLER-COASTER WORLD WAR II ADVENTURE that conjures up memories of the best of Ken Follett and Frederick Forsyth” (The Orlando Sentinel).

“In wartime,” Winston Churchill wrote, “truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.” For Britain’s counterintelligence operations, this meant finding the unlikeliest agent imaginable—a history professor named Alfred Vicary, handpicked by Churchill himself to expose a highly dangerous, but unknown, traitor. The Nazis, however, have also chosen an unlikely agent. Catherine Blake is the beautiful widow of a war hero, a hospital volunteer—and a Nazi spy under direct orders from Hitler: uncover the Allied plans for D-Day...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780451209306
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/06/2003
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	752
Sales rank:	58,030
Product dimensions:	4.20(w) x 7.30(h) x 1.70(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Daniel Silva is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Unlikely Spy, The Mark of the Assassin, The Marching Season, and the Gabriel Allon series, including The Kill Artist, The English Assassin, The Confessor, A Death in Vienna, Prince of Fire, The Messenger, The Secret Servant, Moscow Rules, The Defector, The Rembrandt Affair, Portrait of a Spy, The Fallen Angel, The English Girl, The Heist, The English Spy, The Black Widow, and House of Spies. His books are published in more than thirty countries and are bestsellers around the world.

Date of Birth:

1960

Place of Birth:

Michigan

Website:

http://www.danielsilvabooks.com

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER ONE
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "The Unlikely Spy"
by .
Copyright © 2003 Daniel Silva.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Evocative...memorable...a classic World War II espionage tale." - Washington Post

"Silva keeps the suspense keen." - Los Angeles Times

"A roller-coaster World War II adventure that conjures up memories of the best of Ken Follett and Frederick Frosyth." - Orlando Sentinel

Editorial Reviews

Will Nazi spies escape from Britain with Allied plans for the imminent invasion of Normandy? As history tells us, obviously not-so the challenge for veteran journalist and CNN producer Silva in his first novel is to brew up enough intrigue and tension to make readers forget the obvious. While Silva employs multiple characters and settings, his key players are an English counterintelligence officer and a beautiful Nazi spy. Alfred Vicary is an academic recruited to work for MI5. The intelligence reports he fabricates and sends to Germany are designed to persuade the Nazis that their utterly compromised spy network, the Abwehr, is still fully operational. MI5 learns, however, that the Abwehr has been keeping a few sleeper operatives under deep cover throughout the war. Now they pose a serious threat to the invasion plans. One of these operatives is Catherine Blake, a ruthless assassin and spy. Her assignment is to become romantically involved with Peter Jordan, an American engineer working on a top-secret D-Day project. Will Vicary be able to stop her? Silva's characters are strong; but, despite occasional bursts of high suspense and a body count to remember, his overall pacing is uneven, and most readers won't forget that D-Day succeeded. The final plot twist, moreover, while unpredictable, seems more logical than shocking. Silva's debut will find an audience among devoted readers of WWII thrillers, and deservedly so, but he's not yet on a par with such masters of the genre as Ken Follett, Robert Harris and Jack Higgins. 150,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo; BOMC alternate selection; Reader's Digest Condensed Book selection; simultaneous BDD audio; foreign rights to 16 countries; author tour. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This first novel, in which a treacherous Nazi female is pursued by a former American history professor during World War II, is scheduled for an unusually high first printing: 150,000 copies. Note the book's advertising tag line: "One man can't win the war, but one woman can lose it."

Library Journal

Television producer Silva delivers a fine, old-fashioned WW II debut thriller that pits an English don against Admiral Wilhelm Canaris's Abwehr—in a deadly contest of wits on the eve of the Allied invasion of occupied Europe.

Recruited for the War Office's MI5 by his friend Winston Churchill, Alfred Vicary (a shrewd history professor who was badly wounded as a behind-the-lines courier during WW I) is assigned early in 1944 to a hush-hush effort to mislead Hitler's intelligence services concerning D-day's primary target. While the bachelor academic employs captured German spies to transmit disinformation to Berlin, radio intercepts confirm that a sleeper agent has been activated to determine where the amphibious assault will come ashore. Despite a discouraging lack of leads, Vicary sets about tracking down the hitherto unsuspected operative (a murderous young woman long established in London under the name Catherine Blake) and the Wehrmacht veteran parachuted in to give her a hand. Dogged police work eventually puts counterespionage watchers on Catherine's trail but not before she beds a susceptible US Navy officer. Aware that the besotted Yank's knowledge could put SHAEF's greatest secret in enemy hands, Vicary coolly blackmails him into cooperating in the ongoing deception. Before he can roll up the network, however, Catherine's alert accomplice verifies that MI5 is on to them. Leaving a slew of bodies in their wake, the two bolt for a U-boat waiting offshore. Although the fugitives are prevented from escaping the British Isles or reporting what they know, Vicary is found wanting by his superiors. Only after Allied forces are marching through France to the Rhineland does Vicary learn that he played a vital role in an endgame more duplicitous than any the department's workaday treacheries had prepared him for.

A fine, twisty tale of military intelligence, notable for graceful prose, credibly motivated characters, and evocative detail.

Kirkus Reviews

Evocative…memorable…a classic World War II espionage tale.”—The Washington Post

“Briskly suspenseful.”—The New York Times

“A satisfying and fast-paced World War II espionage thriller.”—San Francisco Examiner

“Bodies pile up, and Silva keeps the suspense keen as he advantage shifts back and forth between the good guys and the Nazis.”—Los Angeles Times

“[Silva] has clearly done his homework, mixing fact and fiction to delicious effect and building tension—with breathtaking double and triple turns of plot—like a seasoned pro.”—People

“Layers of depth and intrigue…Silva succeeds with panache.”—USA Today

“[A] tautly drawn thriller…Plenty of nail-biting scenes.”—The New York Post

From the Publisher