Books like The defector by Daniel Silva

Six months after his triumph in *Moscow Rules*, Gabriel Allon returns to Umbria, where he is honeymooning with his new wife Chiara and restoring a seventeenth‑century altarpiece for the Vatican. His peaceful life is shattered when news arrives that Grigori Bulganov, a former Russian intelligence officer who saved Allon’s life in Moscow, has disappeared. British intelligence suspects Bulganov is a double agent, but Allon knows the truth. He is also reminded of a promise he made—promising not to end up in an unmarked grave. Allon and his team are drawn into a deadly confrontation with Ivan Kharkov, a murderous Russian oligarch and arms dealer. The chase takes them from a quiet mews in London to the shores of Lake Como, the glittering streets of Geneva and Zurich, and culminates in the snow‑bound birch forests of Russia. Faced with the risk of losing the one thing he holds most dear, Allon is tested in ways he never imagined, and his life will never be the same.

First publish date: 2009