About the Book-The collector by Daniel Silva
Legendary art restorer and spy Gabriel Allon joins forces with a brilliant and beautiful master-thief to track down the world’s most valuable missing painting but soon finds himself in a desperate race to prevent an unthinkable conflict between Russia and the West.
Silva’s powerhouse novel showcases his outstanding skill and brilliant imagination, destined to be a must-read for both his multitudes of fans and growing legions of converts.
“I find it comforting to prepare myself for a calamity and to be pleasantly surprised if it turns out to be a garden-variety disaster instead.”
Read on for our review of The collector by Daniel Silva
Our Review of The collector by Daniel Silva
I think my biggest mistake was picking this book on audiobook. I feel that if I had gone for ebook or paperback this book would have been much more interesting. Sadly though I had it in audiobook and with the narrator’s thick accent and a bit technical sounding narration of the book, I found it rather stretching and failing to keep me captivated. I used to zone out pretty quickly when the book went into the character backgrounds and trivia which is weird as I love when the books would have interesting historical facts and trivia. This book had a collection of it and that is why I feel I should have probably picked it in any other form.
The Collector does have moments when it is just revolving around the character’s background and takes a lot of time to come back to the main story. This trip to the past in turn just zaps out the energy of the book as the pace of the book gets paused for a while.
I loved how the book had references to real-world events and anecdotes especially glimpses of the Ukraine and Russian war threaded into the plot with ease. But as I said for almost 80% of the book, I had to struggle to get to the main facts amongst all the trivia. Perhaps this is because of the audio format which is why I feel I should give a Daniel Silva book another try to see the true glory of his writing. If in case the books carry a decent amount of trivia then I would love to explore more of his books.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would say that my experience of the book was compromised because of the audio narration that was heavily accented and filled with unpleasant modulations. So I can’t say that I was able to get the full gist of the book. I could only absorb about 40% of the book and from that 40% of the book, I loved the little incorporation of trivia and anecdotes. I am though not a fan of how the book could pause the narration to give the back story of a particular character or organization that was a threat to an otherwise smooth-flowing story. In short, the book was a case of hit-and-miss for me.
Squirrel Rating
