Get our Best Book Club Books of 2025 eBook!

Summary and Reviews of The Confessor by Daniel Silva

The Confessor by Daniel Silva

The Confessor

by Daniel Silva
  • Critics' Consensus (4):
  • Readers' Rating (3):
  • First Published:
  • Feb 1, 2003, 400 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Feb 2004, 416 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

Filled with rich characters, remarkable prose, and a multilayered plot of uncommon intensity, this is one of Silva's best books to date. A must for all who enjoy a good spy thriller.

Munich: The writer Benjamin Stern entered his flat to see a man standing there, leafing through his research, and said, "Who the hell are you?" In response, the man shot him. As Stern lay dying, the gunman murmured a few words in Latin, then he gathered the writer's papers and left.

Venice: The art restorer Gabriel Allon applied a dab of paint carefully to the Bellini, then read the message thrust into his hands. Stern was dead; could he leave right away? With a sigh, the Mossad agent began to put his brushes away.

The Vatican: The priest named Pietro paced in the garden, thinking about the things he had discovered, the enemies he would make, the journey before him. Men would surely die, and he wished another could take it for him. But he knew that was not possible. In the weeks to come, the journeys of all three men will come together, following a trail of long-buried secrets and unthinkable deeds, leaving each one forever changed. And with them, the lives of millions . . .

Filled with rich characters, remarkable prose, and a multilayered plot of uncommon intensity, this is the finest work yet by a new master of the art.

Munich

The apartment house at Adalbertstrasse 68 was one of the few in the fashionable district of Schwabing yet to be overrun by Munich's noisy and growing professional elite. Wedged between two red brick buildings that exuded prewar charm, No. 68 seemed rather like an ugly younger stepsister. Her façade was a cracked beige stucco, her form squat and graceless. As a result her suitors were a tenuous community of students, artists, anarchists, and unrepentant punk rockers, all presided over by an authoritarian caretaker named Frau Ratzinger, who, it was rumored, had been living in the original apartment house at No. 68 when it was leveled by an Allied bomb. Neighborhood activists derided the building as an eyesore in need of gentrification. Defenders said it exemplified the very sort of Bohemian arrogance that had once made Schwabing the Montmartre of Germany, the Schwabing of Hesse and Mann and Lenin. And Adolf Hitler, the professor working in the second-floor window might ...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $0 for 0 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

Booklist
An uncommonly intelligent thriller told with elegant precision.

Library Journal - Barbara Conaty
The Vatican, Venice, and Munich are perfectly drawn as the settings for these dark acts of ambition, greed, and revenge, as are the characters, whom you'd scarcely believe live only on the page. For popular collections everywhere.

Kirkus Reviews
Another polished and entertaining thriller from the prolific Silva, this one tracking dark secrets in Vatican City.....Familiar material, for sure, but powered by steady pacing, keen detail, and a strong, ironic finish.

Publishers Weekly
Though the plot sticks close to Silva's well-honed formula, the provocative historical revelations will keep readers enthralled.

Reader Reviews

Rosanna

Hard-hitting Story
I love Daniel Silva and I have all of his books. In fact, I just finished re-reading The Confessor, which I first discovered almost 20 years ago. Silva engages the reader with the first paragraph and the story pulls you in deeper and deeper ...   Read More
kinkazzo

Very fast paced and interesting topic: of course, the Vatican has already gone through many an intrigue recently. Just think of the Masonic P2 scandal, the crack of the Banco Ambrosiano bank and the "suicide" of Vatican businessman Calvi ...   Read More
Dee Townsend

So why is it "politically correct" to attack the Roman Catholic church, even in fiction? It is a completley racist book, which seems to be most popular only against catholics.

I understand there are books written that the holocast never ...   Read More

Write your own review!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $0 for 0 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Read-Alikes Full readalike results are for members only

If you liked The Confessor, try these:

  • The Historian jacket

    The Historian

    by Elizabeth Kostova

    Published 2006

    About this book

    More by this author

    What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? Is it possible that the Dracula of myth truly existed—and that he has lived on, century after century, pursuing his own unknowable ends? Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel is an adventure of monumental proportions, a relentless tale that blends fact and fantasy, ...

  • Dark Voyage jacket

    Dark Voyage

    by Alan Furst

    Published 2005

    About this book

    More by this author

    Set in May 1941 Dark Voyage is taut with suspense and pounding with battle scenes; it is authentic, powerful, and brilliant.

We have 5 read-alikes for The Confessor, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.
More books by Daniel Silva
Search read-alikes
How we choose read-alikes
Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $0 for 0 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

BookBrowse Book Club

  • Book Jacket
    The Lilac People
    by Milo Todd
    For fans of All the Light We Cannot See, a poignant tale of a trans man’s survival in Nazi Germany and postwar Berlin.
  • Book Jacket
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Based on the author’s family story, comes an extraordinary novel about a mother and her daughters’ escape from Taiwan.
  • Book Jacket
    Lessons in Chemistry
    by Bonnie Garmus
    Praised by Parade and The New York Times Book Review, this debut features a 1960s scientist turned TV cooking star.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Serial Killer Games
    by Kate Posey

    A morbidly funny and emotionally resonant novel about the ways life—and love—can sneak up on us (no matter how much pepper spray we carry).

  • Book Jacket

    Ginseng Roots
    by Craig Thompson

    A new graphic memoir from the author of Blankets and Habibi about class, childhood labor, and Wisconsin’s ginseng industry.

  • Book Jacket

    The Original Daughter
    by Jemimah Wei

    A dazzling debut by Jemimah Wei about ambition, sisterhood, and family bonds in turn-of-the-millennium Singapore.

  • Book Jacket

    Awake in the Floating City
    by Susanna Kwan

    A debut novel about an artist and a 130-year-old woman bound by love and memory in a future, flooded San Francisco.

Who Said...

A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

B W M in H M

and be entered to win..