Sometimes You Just Savor The Ending

I love a good book.  The only thing better than a good book is a good book in a series of good books.

I just finished one of those in that previous category.

 I got hooked on the story of Gabriel Allon, an Israeli Intelligence Agent, with the release of 'The English Girl' about two years ago.  I had just finished the Dan Brown series and was looking for something good to listen to during my daily commute. I walked into Barnes and Noble and there it was just inside the front door.

I loved the intrigue and meeting all of the characters.  Finding out that it was #13 in an ongoing series was icing on the cake.  That meant I could go back and read twelve more, if need be, before the next book arrived!

One of the things I love about this series is that you don't have to read them in order.  Yes, there is a little bit of a 'history lesson' in each one as the recurring characters are reintroduced...but even if you start at #13, you get a complete story and do not feel like you have missed out on a thing.  I have listened to seven of the novels on AudioBook and I have read three on my Nook.  (Two of them I read traveling to and from South Africa last May.)

I downloaded "The Rembrandt Affair" on Audible this month even though I had a very hard time with the last book, "The Defector".  (It was my least favorite of the series so far.  Just a bit too brutal for me.)  I'm so glad I didn't give up on this series. 

As a matter of fact, I enjoyed this one so much that I didn't want it to end.  So I waited nearly a week to listen to the last two chapters of the book.  I needed to savor the victory of Gabriel and his team for a bit...especially after the way the last book ended. 

This is "a story of greed, dispossession, and death spanning more than half a century and stretching from Amsterdam to Zurich to Buenos Aires and back to the graceful shores of Lake Geneva. It featured a long-hidden portrait of Rembrandt, a twice-stolen fortune in looted Holocaust assets, and a man known to all the world as Saint Martin who was anything but ... "

And what a story it is! 

I'm suddenly looking forward to the next installment in the series, "Portrait of a Spy".  And I have already pre-ordered his next book which releases in June "The English Spy".  But first, I just want to savor this one for a bit.

Maybe I'll read a comedy next!

Happy reading, everyone.