The Marching Season

From Barnes & Noble

Daniel Silva is synonymous with high-stakes international thrillers in the best tradition of Robert Ludlum and David Morrell. The Marching Season is a pulse-pounding follow-up to The Mark of the Assassin and marks the return of stellar CIA agent Michael Osbourne.

Edward Neuert

...[O]ne wishes he had cut straight to his gritty, unnerving Irish scenes and dug deeper into the sod of Ulxster, where everything is green and bleak...
— The New York Times

Entertainment Weekly

[The Marching Season creates] an almost unbearable tension....Silva urges you on like a silencer poking at the small of your back.

San Francisco Chronicle

Daniel Silva keeps the double-crosses moving at a frenzied clip.

USA Today

[A] Tom Clancy-esque thriller...Briskly paced.

From The Critics

The writing is not flashy, but it is clear and direct and deals out just enough technical info to be interesting, without Tom Clancy's tendency to get bogged down in minutiae.

Publishers Weekly

The title of Silva's new thriller (after Mark of the Assassin and The Unlikely Spy) refers to the time of the year in Northern Ireland when the Protestants assert their right to march in celebration of a 300-year-old victory over the Catholics — and the Catholics (naturally) object. The Irish background to this elaborately plotted but not very convincing yarn is by far the best part about it. Silva has clearly done his homework on Belfast and the tone of the contemporary Troubles, and the opening passages have an authentic ring. All too soon, however, the story becomes bogged down in one of those worldwide conspiracies to keep the world safe for arms merchants by blocking any efforts toward peace, of a kind only John le Carre, with his much more acute eye and ear for offbeat villains, can hope to bring off. There is a supposedly charismatic yet glum world-class assassin who bumps off the surgeon who has changed his face; an embittered ex-CIA man, Michael Osbourne, whose job is to save the free world; Osbourne's wife, who wishes he would leave the Agency alone, and various cynical and suave operatives on both sides. The whole tale is told in simple, declarative sentences that convey information (though not much else) with economy and authority, but ultimately become tedious. There are anomalies, too: a climactic shootout in Washington might work as a movie scene but sags on the page; and while such real-life figures as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams and (in a truly ludicrous scene) even Queen Elizabeth are given walk-ons, the American public figures are all mythical. Despite Silva's skill at moving a story along, this is basically a mechanical and lackluster performance.

Library Journal

Like all the folks who keep going back to Grade A steakhouses for hearty sirloin and baked potato, thriller readers will flock to Silva's latest because this is solid, reliable, and delicious nourishment for those whose daily diet is limited to blander selections. Silva, resurrecting the spy and assassin who were such fabulous hits in The Mark of the Assassin, now zooms in on the Irish Troubles. A hardcore group, supported by a shadowy entente determined to keep up the demand for arms and discord, has set itself firmly against the peace accords of 1998 and has enlisted Jean-Paul Delaroche to kill the U.S. ambassador to Ireland. The ambassador's son-in-law is Michael Osbourne, the ex-CIA spy who barely survived Delaroche's attack five years earlier and who must protect the ambassador. The suspensful chase features vicious passions, coolly determined women, and up-to-date realism. The settings in Ireland and elsewhere are nicely evoked.
— Barbara Conaty, Library of Congress

USA Today

[A] Tom Clancy-esque thriller...Briskly paced.

Kirkus Reviews

The Troubles claim still another victim, as Silva's attempt to pull off the hat trick falls short of the success of his two earlier spy thrillers. Because they want to torpedo the Good Friday accords that they think will oust the British from Northern Ireland, Kyle Blake and his tiny, murderous Ulster Freedom Brigade (UFB) embark on a wholesale campaign of terrorism, bombing Irish and British landmarks on the same day they're executing a Sinn Fein notable. Because he's determined to let the UFB know he stands foursquare behind the accords, Prime Minister Tony Blair insists that the next US Ambassador to Britain be a person of substance. Because he can't resist the chance to make history once more, retired Senator Douglas Cannon agrees to accept the posting. Because he's worried about his father-in-law's safety, and because he's offered another chance to go after October, the hired assassin who narrowly eluded him in The Mark of the Assassin (1998) and may be involved once again here, ex-CIA agent Michael Osbourne comes back to the Agency to assess counterterrorist measures in London and ends up in the middle of the inevitable UFB attempt on Cannon's life. All this may sound vaguely familiar, since even real-life Yanks like George Mitchell have taken such major roles in recent Northern Irish history. But when Cannon survives the attempt to return to Washington with Osbourne in tow, stealthily pursued by October and escaped UFB intelligence chief Rebecca Wells, the scent of Tom Clancy's Patriot Games becomes overpowering. Sadly, Silva's biggest innovation, the international franchise of diplomats and arms dealers designed to foment worldwide unrest and integrate the New World Orderflare-ups that keep Osbourne in business, is the weakest aspect of this rousing but otherwise familiar tale. What survives is a sure hand with the larger picture, some movie-tense action sequences, a hero worth rooting for-and a few lucky members of the supporting cast.