The Collector (Gabriel Allon, Bk. 23)

On the morning after the Venice Preservation Society's annual black-tie gala, art restorer and legendary spy Gabriel Allon enters his favorite coffee bar on the island of Murano to find General Cesare Ferrari, commander of the Art Squad, eagerly awaiting his arrival. The Italian police have made a startling discovery in the Amalfi villa of a murdered South African shipping tycoon—a secret vault containing an empty frame and stretcher matching the dimensions of The Concert by Johannes Vermeer, one of thirteen works of art stolen from Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990.

General Ferrari asks Gabriel to quietly track down the Vermeer before the tr4ail once again goes cold. With the help of an unlikely ally, a beautiful Danish computer hacker and professional thief, he soon discovers that the painting has changed hands as part of an illicit billion-dollar business deal involving a man code-named the Collector, an energy executive with ties to the highest levels of Russian power.

The missing masterpiece is the linchpin of a conspiracy that could plunge the world into a conflict of apocalyptic proportions. To foil the plot, Gabriel must carry out a daring heist of his own, with the lives of millions hanging in the balance.