A Death in Cornwall: Daniel Silva

For Daniel Silva fans, July means a new Gabriel Allon novel.

Silva does not disappoint this month and neither does Allon with “A Death in Cornwall.”

This is not the Allon book that many readers may have expected but it is the Allon book we need this summer.

Gabriel Allon is a former Israeli superspy/retired intelligence agency head who is also a master restorer of Renaissance art. Given the news of the past several months, one might expect a thriller set in the Middle East. It has been a regular setting for Allon during the past few decades and two dozen related novels.

But neither Israel nor any of Allon’s traditional Israeli comrades are present. Not even for cameo appearances.

Instead, Silva hews true to his main character being retired from the Israeli intelligence services and focuses on Allon’s connections to the art world and the English county of Cornwall, which has been a locale connected with a few past Allon novels.

Here, a renowned art historian appears to be the latest victim of a hatchet-wielding serial killer known as The Chopper. A police detective is an old family friend who asks Allon for help. They soon learn the art historian’s death is linked to her efforts to restore a Picasso stolen during World War II to its rightful owner. Their investigation uncovers a wide ring of parties associated with the Picasso and the death.

While “A Death in Cornwall” does not feature any of Allon’s regular supporting cast of Israeli characters, it does feature several characters familiar to regular readers, especially a few who have made appearances in more recent novels as well as one who hasn’t appeared in several years.

The book also ignores some other regular Allon conceits such as numerous references to his age. For example, there is no mention of the fictional Allon’s connection to the hunting down of the perpetrators of the killing of Israeli athletes during the 1972 Olympics in Munich. A connection that would make Allon either in his very late 60s or somewhere in his 70s – a bit old for the hustle-bustle of a thriller plot. The often dour Allon seems much lighter this outing, making jokes on numerous occasions.

All that said, Daniel Silva continues weaving spy stories that fall wonderfully between the pulp action thrillers of Ian Fleming and the thinking man spy stories of John le Carré.

Crooked Path to Abolition: James Oakes

James Oakes is a two-time Lincoln Prize winner for his works on abolition.

In “The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution,” Oakes delves into the constitutional basis for abolition already baked into the nation’s premier document from the start of the U.S. to Lincoln’s constitutional premise for the Emancipation Proclamation.

While much is made of the Constitution’s proslavery elements – such as the fugitive slave clause and the three-fifths clause that claimed 60% of the South’s slaves could be included in the count for congressional representation – an argument with sound reason since it took a Civil War to end slavery more than 80 years after the Constitution was ratified, Oakes claims the Constitution had more antislavery components.

These include Congress having the power to make “all needful rules and regulations” for American territories which effectively kept slavery out of the territories, free states having the right to insist upon due process for accused fugitives, inferring slaves are people rather than the Southern claim they were property – the Constitution does not use the words slave or slavery – and touting throughout the document that liberty is meant for all.

Oakes argues that throughout his career as an attorney, lawmaker and president, Lincoln based his arguments for abolition and his “crooked path to abolition” on the Constitution.

Once past the preface, Oakes spends a lot of pages building the premise of an antislavery vs. proslavery Constitution before introducing Lincoln but that’s what makes his argument – which is also the full title of the book – ring true.

Sadly, the nation is still living with the ramifications of that argument more than 200 years after the Constitution was ratified.