The New Girl is the nineteenth book in Daniel Silva’s excellent spy/thriller series featuring Israeli spy Gabriel Allon. Over the years, Gabriel has progressed from aspiring artist, to recruited assassin, to head of the Mossad. In this latest installment, the daughter of a Saudi prince (loosely based on MBS) has been kidnapped, and Allon agrees to help find her.

As I have often observed, it is very hard to keep a long-running series interesting. Readers want stories about the characters they’ve come to love, but reading about those same characters over and over often makes new novels in a series stale and repetitive. Silva is a very good writer and even he sometimes falls into this trap. This time, however, I thought he did a good job of mixing things up and keeping the story interesting.

This novel involves a lot of Russian intrigue, which is particularly timely. The only note here that didn’t ring true for me was the idea that Allon — now head of the Mossad! — would be jumping on trains, etc. around Europe without a protective detail. But that’s a small quibble. Overall, this is a very good installment in the Allon series.

If you enjoy smart, timely, well-researched and well-written spy novels, give this series a shot. As always, I recommend starting with the first book in the series, though The New Girl can be read as a stand-alone. (The earlier books, where Allon worked undercover in Italy as an art restorer are still my favorites.)