As they expected, Russia sends operatives to kill the supposedly treacherous Abdullah with a radioactive poison.

Among the featured characters are ex-CIA operative Sarah Bancroft (last seen in Portrait of a Spy, 2011), who has been advising the crown prince on art acquisitions, and, from the preceding Allon novel, Rebecca Manning/Philby, who is now working from Moscow.

In addition to the Author's Note which accompanies most of the books in the Gabriel Allon series, Daniel Silva introduces The New Girl with a Foreword detailing how actual events interfered with this novel.

He explains that his manuscript became problematical in October 2018, because of the murder of the journalist Jamal Khashoggi, apparently at the behest of Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, known widely as "MBS."

Silva's Khalid bin Mohammed is known as KBM, and, like MBS, has acquired the painting Salvator Mundi attributed to Leonardo da Vinci and a unique superyacht.