Bestselling spy novelist Daniel Silva was born in Michigan in 1960. While pursuing a masters degree in international relations, he received a temporary job with United Press International to help cover the 1984 Democratic National Convention. Soon after, he left his graduate program to work full-time for United Press International. Silva worked in San Francisco and Washington, D. C. and as a Middle East correspondent in Cairo and the Persian Gulf. He was working at CNN when his first novel, The Unlikely Spy, was published. In 1997, he left CNN to become a full-time author. In 2006, Silvas novel The Messenger won the Barry Award for Best Thriller. Many of his books feature the character Gabriel Allon, a former Israeli secret service assassin and art restorer. Silva was appointed to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museums council in 2009. His title The Fallen Angel made The New York Times Best Seller List for 2013.