They Make You Smile, Cry and Think

W

hile I often remark
to friends that so
and so is one of my
favorite authors, when it comes
to fiction, my favorites are the
characters they create. Hands
down, my favorite is Gabriel
Allon, the featured character in
Daniel Silva's books.
I was reading Silva's latest
novel, The Heist, and a friend of
mine commented on how con-
nected she felt to Gabriel and
Chiara, his wife. The conversa-
tion that ensued between us was as if we
were talking about longtime friends.
She had a total crush on Gabriel — his
green eyes, quiet confidence and intensity.
In normal guy fashion, I confessed that
Chiara was irresistible. We discussed the
current book — but there was more to
it — we were also focused on the future of
these individuals and the passion that we
held for them. I believe when a character
really touches you, he becomes a part of

you and can impact your out-
look on future events.
If you are not familiar with
Silva's novels, there are now
14 in the series and they build
upon Gabriel's life as a talented
painter turned renowned art
restorer. His stated occupa-
tion, however, is a cover
because Gabriel was recruited
by the Office (Silva's name
for Mossad) for the purpose
of hunting down and killing
each of the Black September
members responsible for the 1972 Munich
Olympic massacre.
Over the 14 novels, we witness Gabriel
masterminding several Office operations
— to the aid of Israel, the U.S., England
and the pope. As the years progress, the
key members of his inner circle — each
with distinct personas and talents —
become a family among themselves, gath-
ering from time to time for the missions
at hand.

Among Silva's endless
X
talent is his ability to
entwine current Middle
East and global conflict
to the story and current
operation.
With the New Year
approaching, I always
find this to be a time to
assess. We live in a dif-
ficult world. ISIS, Hamas
and the growing (or
perhaps simply reveal-
ing) furor of anti-Semitic
actions over the last year
is disturbing.
As baby boomers, we are not getting
younger. Those of us lucky enough to still
have parents are faced with the difficult
challenges that they face as well as the
need to plan for our own future, which
necessitates planning for an indetermin-
able number of years (hopefully many)
and how to fund them.
The number of stresses we face day to

day is challenging, but
there are so many good
things we often take for
granted. Of course, we
celebrate weddings, bar/
bat mitzvahs graduations,
our kids leaving for col-
lege — these are the obvi-
ous ones. But there are so
many others, such as the
fictional characters cre-
ated by talented artists.
In a world as screwed
up as ours sometimes
seems, I think, for this
New Year, I want to give thanks to the
thousands of artists who, through their
craft, give us cause to smile, to cry and to
think.
Eshana Tova.

/ NFIV rim TIAISSOI . LLLLL !NG .1110k OP

THE ENGLISH GIRL

Daniel

I

1/4

ilva

The

eist

❑

Ken Gross is an attorney with Thav Gross and
host of Law and Reality that airs weekly at
8:30 Saturday mornings on WDFN 1130 AM,

"The Fan," and 11 a.m. Sundays on TV20.

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94

YEARS

1920 - 2014

September 11 • 2014

53