The New Girl was published by Harper in 2019. A twelve-year-old girl is kidnapped from an elite Swiss boarding school. She is the daughter of Khalid bin Mohammed, the Saudi crown prince — a thinly fictionalized version of Mohammed bin Salman. The kidnapping is connected to internal Saudi power struggles, and Allon is drawn into the operation because the crown prince trusts him.
The novel was written in the immediate aftermath of the Jamal Khashoggi assassination (October 2018), and Silva explicitly engages with the character of the Saudi crown prince — his reformist ambitions, his ruthlessness, and the question of whether a modernizing autocrat can be a legitimate partner for Western democracies. The kidnapping plot becomes a vehicle for examining the nature of absolute power and its corruptions.
The Khashoggi Shadow
The murder of Jamal Khashoggi — a dissident Saudi journalist killed and dismembered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018 — hangs over every page. Silva’s fictional crown prince is not a simple villain: he is a genuine reformer who has allowed women to drive, opened cinemas, curtailed the religious police. But he is also capable of extraordinary brutality when his authority is challenged. The novel asks whether these traits can coexist in a single ruler, and whether the West’s willingness to deal with such leaders constitutes pragmatism or complicity.
The Swiss Setting
The novel’s Swiss boarding school setting — exclusive, discreet, absurdly expensive — serves as a microcosm of the relationship between Western wealth and Middle Eastern petrodollars. Swiss banks, Swiss schools, Swiss real estate: the infrastructure of discretion that allows authoritarian wealth to park itself safely in the democratic West.
Collecting The New Girl
First edition (Harper, New York, 2019): Boards with dust jacket.
Approximate market values:
- Fine in dust jacket: $15–$25
- Signed first edition: $40–$120
Projected values (2026–2036): Modest. Signed copies should reach $80–$250.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Khalid bin Mohammed meant to be Mohammed bin Salman? Yes, transparently. Silva changes the name but preserves every significant biographical detail.
Is this political fiction? More so than most Allon novels. The novel takes a clear position on the Khashoggi assassination and the West’s response to it.