By New York Post (Opinion) | Created at 2026-08-02 23:54:03 | Updated at 2026-08-03 08:33:06
8 hours ago
Daniel Silva's new book "Ransom" is the 26th in his series featuring ex-spy Gabriel Allon.
Photo by Paula Lobo/American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. via Getty Images
Learn from the prose
Daniel Silva. Topping the best seller list more often than the Bible.
No. 1 on the list — his 26th book in the Gabriel Allon series, “Ransom” — is about a Middle East agent art specialist ex spy who always nails the fink and whose wife seems never to grow older or less gorgeous, unlike the rest of us.
Silva: “I once let my lead character retire from his Israeli secret service connection, but inspiration came from that Copenhagen Airport drone incident last year. European leaders, scheduled days later for a meeting, grabbed drones, signal jammers, whatever signal they could to protect them. That was this book’s inspiration.
“I write in my head at night. I love it. I work at my job, stay at it all day long. Only I find the work longer and harder now than when I was younger. The thought is a limited amount of time’s left.”
Cindy: Ever effed up a fact?
“I preserve spontaneity. No detailed outline. Once, I mixed up an Escalade with another car, but fact-checkers always check. I write longhand. Pencil. Yellow legal pads. As I finish one book, the next takes shape in my head. I have little pieces of paper everywhere. I finally allowed my central character to retire from his longtime Israeli secret service position. But readers and my publisher loved him, so now he’s just a little changed to an art restorer who once was a spy.”
Novel method
“Early 30s I wrote my first book. In secret. No contract. A World War II thriller. If it flopped, I wanted to fail entirely in private. I was then a CNN producer who’d been a foreign correspondent.”
Art of writing
Incorporating anything about today’s Middle East conflict?
“No interest in writing about it. I don’t think many have interest in reading about it. But I’ll give you a clue about my next. I’m into studying Botticelli. Florence’s Uffizi Gallery has his largest collection. Starts with four friends from Cambridge on holiday in Ibiza, and only three come home. And that’s all I’ll say.
“Except one person recently asked me how many researchers I have on staff. I said, ‘Staff? You’re looking at the staff.’ ”
Fear Expressed
This is something I was sent. Arrived unrequested and is something from American Express.
Maybe it’s an ad. Maybe a warning. I just think you should be aware.
Suddenly, everyone is getting hit with some scam. Scammers are becoming sophisticated. Pretending to be trusted. Authorities, including a government entity, your American Express, a friend. Creating urgency, they try to force snap judgments in certain situations — such as a government or law enforcement official reaching out to demand immediate payment for a debt or to collect personal information.
Like: A person claims to have tickets for a high-demand event, say a sold-out game, for a discount. If it sounds too good to be true, the scammer is trying to access your credit card account details or steal your funds.
Someone requests an unusual form of payment such as gift cards or crypto. Proper entities will not ask you to pay with gift cards or crypto to resolve an issue with your account.
News heard around Manhattan: “I want my wife to know we’re in great luck. Now we don’t have to move to an apartment that will end up costing us more money. The landlord just raised our rent.”
Only in New York, kids, only in New York.
