Open Book with Anthony Scaramucci - An Inside Job with Daniel Silva

Episode Date: July 16, 2025

This week, Anthony interviews bestselling author and returning Open Book guest Daniel Silva about his latest novel, 'An Inside Job,' featuring the beloved character Gabriel Allon. They discuss the evolution of Allon, and the intricate relationship between the Vatican and historical events. Silva shares insights into the art world, the mysteries surrounding lost masterpieces, and the complexities of power and corruption within the Vatican. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hello, I'm Anthony Scaramucci. and this is Open Book, where I talk to some of the brightest minds about everything surrounding the written word. That's everything. That's from authors and historians to figures in entertainment, political activists, and of course, Wall Street.

Before we dive in, make sure to follow or subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And don't forget to leave a review. Good or bad, I want to hear from you. I want to hear whether you're enjoying it or where we can improve. And I can take the hits. So let me know. If you don't like something, say it straight. Now let's get into it.

Welcome to Open Book. I am your host, Anthony Scaramucci, and this is my favorite time of the year. But it's also my favorite author. I do have to confess this. So other authors out there, please don't be mad at me. But Daniel Silva, who I have read for probably 15 years, one of the greatest American spy novelist ever. And he's a returning guest and a great friend of mine and a friend of this show. And the title of the book is an inside job, and it is a great title apropos to what's going on in this book, Daniel.

So you are my favorite. It's the best way to start the summer is to read about my favorite protagonist, Gabriel Alon. And you can say whatever you want, Mr. Silva. I know you are. I know you are Gabriel Alon. I know that's how you think, how you live. But tell me what we're doing this summer. Why do you think readers?

Because he's older now. He's lost a step. He's got a little bit of a pouchy midsection, which unfortunately I can relate to and empathize with. Why is he still connecting with readers so deeply? Well, first of all, the guy doesn't have one ounce of fat on his body. He's a slender, slim, incredibly fit. Okay, let me rephrase. You describe him as a little slower.

You describe him as a little slower when he's in a situation. A little older. Well, let me go back to the beginning. We'll go to the origin story. You know, when I created him, he was never supposed to be a continuing character. He was supposed to appear in one book and one book only. And he was completely age appropriate for that novel. And he was someone who had done a number of very high-profile.

file important operations for Israeli intelligence, lost his family to a car bombing in Vienna, and left the service and was out, and was just living basically as a recluse and working privately as an art restorer. And that's a character I created. Pretty good character. and my publisher at the time talked me into writing another one. And I say I was opposed to it. I did not think it was a good idea. I did not think that someone who was Israeli or even Jewish was going to work as a truly mass market character. I was concerned that there was too much anti-Israeli sentiment in the world and frankly too much anti-Semitism.

And I actually resist it. And my publisher at the time said, you're wrong. Write another one. And I had a book ready to go. And it involved the conduct of the Swiss banks during the Second World War. And actually, Gabriel was a perfect fit for it. I plugged him in there. That book did better.

And then I wrote my third book, which was a Vatican thriller. It seems crazy to think that. now, but when I first conceived the novel, Gabriel was not supposed to be in it. I turned it into a Gabriel-Lodd book. And at that point, I realized that I had a series. And until recently, I let this series progress basically in sync with the real calendar. Okay, maybe it's slightly off. And so, yeah, he is older now.

I love it. And I've changed the stories as a result. You know, I don't want to pretend that he's still, you know, 40 or 45 years old and doing these things. Although he's still a dangerous guy and you wouldn't want to mess with him. But also it's just the, frankly, the way he is now is the way I always wanted him to be. And I was pressed and pressured and advised and counsel to make him a very violent, tough guy. You know, the whole tough guy thing was really working at that time. And part of me regrets that because this is the way, this is who he really is.

So he is he is multilingual. His grandfather was one of the great German expressionist paintings. His mother was a very prominent painter. So he, as I write of him in this book, he's born with a paintbrush in his hand. He was born in Israel, but his first language is German. So he speaks German, Hebrew, Italian, French, and he speaks perfect, perfect English. So he's an incredibly brilliant guy. As I point out in this novel as well, he never finished his any, has no formal education

because his education was interrupted by war and terror. but he's a very erudite, amazing individual with a unique skill set. And I have tailored the stories now to fit a character like that. He's more Robert Langdon and a little less, you know,

Jason Bore and Jack Richard. Yeah, but I mean, I love it. I mean, listen, first of all, I learn something every summer. I've learned about the Vatican, my church. I'm obviously, as you and I have both talked about, I'm a practicing Catholic. I've learned about your prediction skills. I do know you're a little bit of a mystic.

You're able to see you to the future and portends some of the things that are going to happen to us, whether they're acts of terrorism or strategic alliances that are happening in the world, wars that are about to take place. Let's go to the novel. It kicks off in Venice. where with Gabriel, he's restoring an altarpiece. Why that city, the Titian altarpiece, I should say, why that city, why that painting,

what drew you to the story there? Well, Gabriel has, Venice is where we sort of met Gabriel. That's where he was living early on in the series. it's where he trained as an art restorer. It's where he served as his apprenticeship. He is by popular acclaim, by universal acclaim, he is the greatest restorer of Italian Renaissance paintings in the world. So he lives in Venice.

He and his wife run the most, prominent restoration firm in Venice. They are taking care of all those Catholic churches there and all the art inside them, and they are doing big restoration projects of all the churches and buildings and art in Venice. So they're a very prominent couple in Venice. And yeah, so we meet him in this novel. He's working on one of the in the Basilica de Santa Maria della Salute. That's that gorgeous basilica that you see it, that it stands right near the mouth of the Grand Canal on the Josaduro side of the canal.

One of the stunning landmarks of Venice. And, you know, during his mid-morning coffee break one day, he goes out to the end of the point there, and he's looking across the water towards Montchiori, and he thinks he sees something out there. And he asks a water taxi driver to take him out there. And what he discovers is a badly decomposed body of a young woman. And we're off to the races.

And the Italian police asked for his help in the investigation, not to be too graphic. here, but the corpse is badly decomposed and they need to produce a forensic sketch. And we see a new skill set that Gabriel has, his ability to produce a forensic sketch, which is a something that just always fascinated me, you know, trying to either turn a skull or badly decomposed human remains into something that we can use to help identify a decedent. and we see that he's able to do this. And one thing leads to another.

And he's on the trail of a long-lost painting by Leonardo da Vinci. You think there's one out there? Do you think that there is a long-lost Leonardo somewhere that we have? You know, this is something that I went into, before I even started working on the novel, with my contacts and my people inside the art. world. And the short answer is, I would say, there probably are a handful of paintings that, you know, we do not have complete documentation of that very, very busy studio of his. We don't know every single painting that was made and where every painting went. And so I researched it

with my people and people who have worked with on Leonardo's before and who are Leonardo experts, there's a difference of opinion out there, but I say that there are, and it's a, there's a distinct possibility that there are a handful of Leonardo oils still to be found. So what is a Leonardo, though? Okay, that's the next question you have to ask yourself. Is it is a, is a painting that's, you know, a, a product of his studio that other assistants worked on, and maybe he put some finishing touches on that. Is that a Leonardo? I say it is.

There's a painting that he might have supervised. I say it is. And so what I did is I turned one of my favorite Leonardo sketches. One of my very favorite Leonardo sketches, regarded as one of the greatest sketches ever made. by art historians. It's a sketch that called Head of a Young Woman is what we call it now,

but it was a preparatory sketch that he made. It's one of the most beautiful sketches ever made. And he used this unknown, probably Milanese young girl as the prototype, as the model for the Archangel Gabriel in a painting called Virgin of the Rocks. I think I always thought, my goodness, he should have painted her the way he painted the, he drew that sketch. Look how few strokes of his silver point pen he used to make that.

Look at the penetration of character. Look at the perfection of that, of that image. It's just one of my favorite paintings of all time. So the Salvador Monday, which just a reminder. Here we go. We're going to get into some trouble. Let's have this conversation. Because it is tied in because this makes the book so fascinating because you're on the trail of the past.

But what makes the book so fascinating, you're on the trail of the past to apex geniuses. Da Vinci, to me, is an apex genius. Newton, Isaac Newton is an apex genius. And there are some people in the Western world over the 5,000 years of our recorded history, that would literally, realm in any time. They would be the leaders of their time. And so that's what makes it so fascinating. You're on this trail. So let's talk about the Salvador Monday for a second. For those people listening in, they may not know it. The Salvador Monday was discovered in Louisiana. It was brought to a few restorers. And some of them drew the conclusion that it was a Da Vinci and some, I guess there was a

woman. It was brought, I think it was brought to one. It was. The woman, right? There was a woman. Diane Monastini, yeah, a very prominent restore. And so they found the painting, and I think they paid $1,100 for it from this auction house in New Orleans. And it, you know, not to go too deep in the weeds, but, you know, we know how to restore paintings now. for centuries though they were subjected to barbarous restorations or what I would call them repaintings

this thing was covered with layer upon layer upon layer of overpaint as we call it and Diane stripped it as we say she took all that stuff off all the dirty varnish and all of the overpaint

and she says oh my goodness you know you move the thumb right what made her think that it was all there were there were two thumbs on the blessing hand

as we call it and there were which suggests that if you look at if you were to be able to look under one of my favorite paintings

the deposition of Christ by Caravaggio at the Vatican I don't know if you've been to the Vatican Museums under Jesus is the hand that we see. I think there are about four or five other hands down there.

Caravaggio keeps moving it around. And so pentamente like that is suggestive of an original work, not a copy. You know, if you're just copying something, you're not going to be making changes like that. And so that thumb is, you know, is suggestive of... You know, I have hedge fund managers. that were thinking about bidding on it and they were worried that it wasn't real. They didn't say that it wasn't real.

They just were worried that it wasn't. Jersey inclusive to them was it conclusive to you? Is the Salvador Monday real? You know, I'm going to leave that to people who know a lot more about it than I do. I have come to the conclusion that it is at a bare minimum, a studio work that came out of Leonardo's studio. I know someone who was involved in that whole process, who was looking at that thing under microscopes and everything else,

and is convinced that he can see the brushwork of Leonardo in there. I'm not going to, you know, I'll leave that to people who, I'm not. Right. I find it fascinating. Yeah, I find it fascinating. There were some issues with it, though. There was some issues with it. What makes your book so great, and I think it's important for me to tell people why you are my favorite spy novelist.

What makes your book so great is you're not just a spy novelist. You're an art historian. You're a travelogue. You're a beta curse, frankly. I feel like I know restaurants that you've been to. I know places in Cornwall. I know places in Venice. I know restaurants in Washington, some of which you've blown up, that I, that I, that I, that I, that I, that I frequented.

But I want to go to the Vatican for a second. Sure. So, because I'm, I'm, I'm trying to talk to you in a way, Daniel, where I'm not trying to give away too much of the plot. Oh. Because I want to, I want to, I want to talk about our guy. He's super tough. He's very charismatic. He's good looking.

He's got a young wife. He's had tragedy in his life. He's a Renaissance man. He knows his wine. He knows his art. But he also knows how to beat the daylights out of somebody and be an assassin if necessary. But you pick things for a reason. So story said in Venice, you've explained that.

You've talked about what we're looking for, which is fascinating because that's part of our world right now. We found one and obviously the Crown Prince owns it. But why the Vatican? Why put the Vatican in this story? And by the way, and by the way, once again, Mr. Silva, the Vatican becomes a huge important part of 2025. Yes. Because we got a new Pope. You took the Vatican before that happens, boom, here we are.

Why the Vatican? Well, as fans of the series know, I mean, you know, there are subsets to the Gabriel books. There's a Russian subset of novels. There are art subset. But one of the most important subsets of the novels are the Vatican thrillers. And as I said a moment ago, like Gabriel first encountered the Vatican in a book called The Confessor, is one of my, I think, one of the best entries in the series. And he formed an incredible friendship with a man named Luigi Dunadi.

At that time, he was the private secretary to the fictitious Pope Paul the 7th. And now Luigi Dunaugati is the Pope. And so there are a number of the books have been set at the Vatican. And Gabriel has worked as an art restorer for the Vatican. And that's why he's on a first name basis with everyone at the museum in this night. He has restored numerous paintings for the Vatican, including the aforementioned deposition of Christ by Carabaggio. He's a, as we say at the Vatican, he's a man of trust. He walks through St. Ann Gate into the palace without through the bronze doors, without anyone checking.

And for me, it's a guilty pleasure because I'm fascinated by the Vatican. I love writing books about the Vatican. And I think this one might be my favorite one yet in terms of the, because there is a, yes, he is trying to track down this missing and stolen Leonardo. But it's also a story about sort of what was going on inside the Vatican during the of the previous Pope and just the war inside the Vatican between Pope Francis, the reformer who wanted to clean up the financial mess and the old guard who didn't want him doing that sort of thing. You know, the Vatican.

Yeah. And I love my church. Obviously, you know, there's an expression in Italian, which I'll translate. So do I. By the way, so do I. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic. Now, has my church has its problems, had there been scandals? There's been, obviously, the sex issues, which has hurt the church, in many ways, weakened the church.

But there's also been some corruption inside the Vatican. And so the corruption that you're detailing, and again, I don't want to go into it, I don't want to ruin the plot, but the corruption that you're detailing in the Vatican, how much of it is rooted in actual events? In this, in my story? Yeah, in the end. It is, as I say in the author's note. It's not quite a Romaniclay, but it was inspired by the scandal involving Cardinal Bechew, who was one of, he was the Sustituto, so he's the third most powerful prelate in the Roman Catholic Church for a time. And he got involved in a massive financial scandal involving this, this, this, uh, terrible investment in a commercial office building in London. And Francis made an example of him, and he's the first cardinal in history of the church to be tried before a Vatican tribunal. He was convicted of embezzlement and fraud.

It was quite a scandal. And so I use that, you know, sort of, drew from that and mixed it in with my art, my art caper. But it was inspired by that scandal. And many before it, it must be said. I mean, that was just the most recent one. And, you know, I think that much of the Vatican's woes when it comes to the financial scandals and the Vatican Bank all go back to Pope Paul's decision to hire and ask his friend, Michaelis, Indole, to be the Vatican's financial advisor. That's not the guy you wanted to be. You know who he is.

Of course. I mean, his record here in the United States. And it's like to be as far it all stems from. Those that are anti-Catholic and those that are, you know, it hurt the church. It's got to a fascinating detail in this book. And this is about Mussolini's 1929 payment to the church. Yeah, yeah.

So why was that piece of. history important to you and important to the story? Well, we have to go back further. Okay. So, you know, unlike you and I, a lot of people don't realize that until the late 19th century, there's no such thing that it's a place called Italy. Okay. It was a collection of duchies and principalities and republics and then we created a country. But one of the most, the largest and most important, little independent statelets in the Italian peninsula were the people states. Big hunk of central Italy was controlled by the church and the pope. And that land, and those estates, produced a lot of income for the church, okay?

that's just like any like a so you know someone who owns a big chunk of land in in in England okay the rents and the everything that's where the church made a lot of money so when Italy uh was created um but through through through war and and uh conquest the church lost the papal states. And with it, all of that income. And from the 19th, you know, from the end of the 19th century and the early 20th century, you know, the Vatican did not have a lot of money.

And so when Mussolini, we had the Lateran Treaty, you know, that is the sort of the origin of the Vatican's modern wealth was when they got a big cash payout. And they brought in a financial advisor and the Vatican became ineffective an international holding company. It bought huge stakes, invested huge stakes, mainly in the Italian economy, had controlling stakes in many of Italy's largest companies. And then as the decades went by, began investing abroad. And so we learned in the last couple of years, you know, exactly how much real estate, for example, the Vatican controls. And it's a great deal of real estate in Europe.

So I see the Vatican as the church, but it also feels like a global corporation. I mean, in the book, it feels like it's multiple things. It's a, it is a sovereign country. Yeah. with a, the Pope is a absolute monarch. We have, the Secretary of State is something like the foreign minister and prime minister of the church. So it is, it has, it has embassies around the world. So it is, it has a government, like any other little, it's a very small state, but it has a government and embassies around the world. And so, yes, it's a religion, but it also acts in world.

defense as a nation state. So, again, we have a, we have the church. We have arguably one of the most famous artists. And, you know, when we think of the word Renaissance man, I mean, you got to think of Da Vinci, Michelangelo others, but Da Vinci is really the guy. And we have this brilliant former Mossad agent. And you've got murder. corruption, history. It's all blended in here. Love the book. I'm going to tie it up with the five words. And you may remember this from other times. You've done this with me. My producer and I picked out five words. And we'd like you to give us the raw shot test, a few words about it or a sentence. I'm going to say the word Vatican. What comes to mind? You say what?

You know, I have spent a lot of time at the Vatican. I love the Vatican. I was able to spend several days in close proximity to Pope Benedict when I was working on a book. I love the place. I really revere the place. And I have been all through it inside the restoration labs and at the museums. And so I am utterly fascinated by the place, by the faith, by the history of the church, the good and the bad. And I just love every second that I spend at the Vatican.

Okay. Power. Think about power. Power. Yeah. Say the word power. You say what? You know, I, I'm disillate.

I'm liking that word less and less and less, to be honest. too. Yeah. I hear the word corruption, unfortunately. When I hear the word power, I think of Lord Acton, sir. I think power, corruption. And I don't know if you, if you, we didn't get a chance to discuss the Pope in this novel, Pope Tenadi. And I don't know if you got a chance to read the sermon that he delivers in Palermo. And that, um, that, is that is the set aside everything else. That's the most important moment of the book and why I'm so pleased. Why I personally, which, you know, Francis was not a perfect person. He was not a perfect pope, but gosh, did we need him? And he was an important, important pope. And we have someone in the

Francis mold in Leo, I hope. And when I hear the word power, Right now, I guess I have that mind, first thoughts goes to the powerless. That's where I am right now. It's interesting. And I'm going to bring this up. You could react to you. I think we have an American Pope because the Vatican, and by the way, he's a great guy. And I, you know, I had the opportunity to meet him when we were restoring St. Patrick's Cathedral.

He Langone had him in town with Cardinal Dolan and we spent a lot of money. Us New York Catholic spent a lot of money restoring the cathedral. But he's a great guy and he's now Leo the 14th, but we were calling him Father Bob back then. And he's a great guy. But I think we have him because the Vatican's hurting. And the Vatican knows that the dough, the Catholic dough is in the U.S. We have a poor clergy. If you look at the two billion Catholics and you look at where they are around the world,

it's an indigent population. And Vatican has a little bit of a short foregoing. It could be from the sexual scandal payments, other things. And I think Father... The Vatican is a prolific fundraiser for them. Sorry, what are we going to say, Day? The Vatican very skillfully siloed itself off from that scandal. you know, it drew a firewall and kept it, you know, the payouts were made at the diocesan level,

and that's why we bankrupted so many American dioceses, Israelis around the world. So, yeah, there were huge payouts, but, you know, the Vatican took steps to protect sort of the core holdings of the church. in my opinion. Yeah, listen, the church's going to, long after we're gone, you and me, my friend, the church is going to be here. You know, the church, people. I hope so. Well, I believe.

Well, I'm a Catholic because I believe that. Let's go to the word art. I say the word art. You say what? Gosh, I'm just one of those people that just gets weak in the knees in front of art. If you could see behind me all the art books. you know, I'm very lucky that my life revolves around my own writing, great books, great art, and great music. It is so important. And I can't, I'm at a loss for words, how much art means to me and how important art is. And it should be more than just a a fungible asset. It should be more than just an asset class. I know a lot of people

put tons of money into art and they do it for investment reasons. I wish it were all in public display and not locked in the Geneva Threeport. That is so interesting. You know, when I hear the word art, I think of eternal. I think this is the expression from human beings, the chip of creativity that's going to outlast all of us. Well, we see so, you know, we see Gabriel, you know, he's standing atop this platform restoring the Titian, and he's actually talking to Tishin, you know, because he's right in there with Tishin's original brushstrokes. Imagine that. You know, putting it on your, you know.

There you go. And there'll be somebody after Gabriel, 2145, you know, 22, 35. It will be doing something similar. There's a conversation. being threaded over the millennial through our art. I got the word Daniel Silva. When I say the words Daniel Silva. Oh, gosh.

You know, as I can start to see the end of my career and, you know, I'm thinking more and more what I'm going to leave behind. You know, yes, I write spy novels. I mean, this is not a spy novel by any means. It's a mystery. It's actually sort of a novel, to be honest with you, more than anything else. And I guess what I hope people will remember about me in my books is that they aren't about pure power and about, you know, bad guys shooting up the place.

I hope that people will understand the... What a... My kindness and my humanity as a writer. Okay, yes, I do write popular fiction. Yes, I do write commercial fiction. But there's a message in all my books, and there are much more than that. And I hope that when I pause up, as I like to say, that that's what I'll be remembered for.

I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to channel your wife. I'm going to say stud author when I think of Daniel. Me? Stud author? Yeah, you know you are. I mean, look at you. Look at how alienly dressed you are. Okay.

I'm sitting here in a t-shirt that says, don't make me repeat myself. It's great. And you're sitting there, swank. I would have gotten dressed for you regardless. Swank as good. You're spinning there. You see, the next time I see you, I'm going to be in a suit. It wasn't that amazing wedding.

Okay. The last word, I'm going to give you the last word. Gabriel Alon. I say the two words, Gabriel Alon, you say what? Yes, he's done, he did some violent things in defense of his country and his people. but when you think of him in the end, think of him the way he looks after his children. Think of the way he is with his kids.

Think of what he is. Everything about Gabriel is about restoration and not just paintings, about situations, about writing past wrongs, about looking after the weakest and most vulnerable in society. He is a very, he's a decent, decent, kind person. That's who Gabriel Long is.

Well, listen, I'm counting the days until the next Gabriel Lahn novel. You read one of the two. One of the great sad as I finish it. I'm like, another 355 days. I got to wait for another one. But thank you so much for joining us on Open Book. Of course, the title of this book is an inside job. It's by Daniel Silva.

And it's always a great pleasure to see you, Daniel. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. I am Anthony Scarabucci, and that was Open Book. Thank you so much for listening. If you like what you hear, tell your friends, and make sure you hit follow or subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. While you're there, please leave us a rating or review. If you want to connect with me or chat,

about the discussions. It's at Scaramucci on X or Instagram. I'd love to hear from you. I'll see you back here next week. When a country's productivity cycle is broken, people feel it in their paychecks, their communities, their futures. What does this mean for individuals, communities, and businesses across the country? Join business leaders, policymakers, and influencers for CGs' national series on the Canadian Standard of Living, Productivity and Innovation. Learn what's driving Canada's productivity decline and discover actionable solutions to reverse it.