An American Spy [Hardcover]

Olen Steinhauer (Author)

Book Description

Release date: March 13, 2012

In Olen Steinhauer’s bestseller The Tourist, reluctant CIA agent Milo Weaver uncovered a conspiracy linking the Chinese government to the highest reaches of the American intelligence community, including his own Department of Tourism---the most clandestine department in the Company. The shocking blowback arrived in the Hammett Award--winning The Nearest Exit when the Department of Tourism was almost completely wiped out as the result of an even more insidious plot.

Following on the heels of these two spectacular novels comes An American Spy, Olen Steinhauer’s most stunning thriller yet. With only a handful of “tourists”—CIA-trained assassins—left, Weaver would like to move on and use this as an opportunity to regain a normal life, a life focused on his family. His former boss in the CIA, Alan Drummond, can’t let it go. When Alan uses one of Milo’s compromised aliases to travel to London and then disappears, calling all kinds of attention to his actions, Milo can’t help but go in search of him.

Worse still, it's beginning to look as if Tourism's enemies are gearing up for a final, fatal blow.

With An American Spy, Olen Steinhauer, by far the best espionage writer in a generation, delivers a searing international thriller that will settle once and for all who is pulling the strings and who is being played.

An American Spy is one of The New York Times Notable Books of 2012.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The plot unfolds with such ease, grace and force that you simply don't want it to end."

---Alan Cheuse, The Dallas Morning News

"Right now the hottest name in [the spy thriller genre] is Olen Steinhauer. He's been called John le Carré's heir apparent, and the best espionage writer of his generation. For anyone who reads spy novels, that's high praise."

---Christian DuChateau, cnn.com

"...highly charged ... Olen Steinhauer is one terrific story plotter. In these three books you expect the unexpected. ... fiendishly clever."

---Vick Mickunas, Dayton Daily News 

"Not since John le Carré has a writer so vividly evoked the multilayered, multifaceted, deeply paranoid world of espionage, in which identities and allegiances are malleable and ever shifting... Real espionage is actually like this."

---Ben Macintyre, The New York Times Book Review (Editor's Choice)

"stunning ... Steinhauer is at the top of his game -- but when isn't he?"

---Carol Memmott, USA Today 

Praise for An American Spy

“Stunning. . .Readers are irresistibly drawn into Weaver's dogged struggle to unravel a complicated game of cat and mouse. . .Steinhauer is at the top of his game—but when isn't he?"
—USA Today

“The action is lickety-split and spiked with exceedingly satisfying spy craft.”
—The New York Times

“Not since Le Carre has a writer so vividly evoked the multilayered, multifaceted, deeply paranoid world of espionage, in which identities and allegiances are malleable and ever shifting, the mirrors of loyalty and betrayal reflecting one another to infinity. In this intensely clever, sometimes baffling book, it’s never quite clear who is manipulating whom, and which side is up."
—The New York Times Book Review

“This ambitious, complex story spans the globe. Even when the intricacies of its plot are most challenging, we are fascinated and swept forward. Steinhauer has been likened to John le Carre and rightly so. Both men carry readers deep into a rival spy agency, one Soviet, one Chinese. . .Zhu may in time be to Weaver what the Soviet spymaster Karla was to le Carre’s George Smiley. Olen Steinhauer’s Milo Weaver novels are must-reads for lovers of the genre.”
—The Washington Post

Praise for The Nearest Exit

“The Nearest Exit [is] a terrific second installment in Olen Steinhauer’s ‘Tourist’ spy series about Milo Weaver, a brooding CIA operative with all the right lone-wolf tendencies. . .Milo’s company is at least as valuable to the series’ appeal as is his flair for international trickery.”
—Janet Maslin, The New York Times (Notable Book of 2010)

“Weaver is the novel’s gem. . .In many ways this is a classic spy novel, but it's Weaver’s angst that lifts the book to a compelling level of freshness.”
—USA Today

“Steinhauer delivers another winner in The Nearest Exit, a spy novel that asks deeper questions about the price we extract from individuals in the pursuit of the so-called greater good and the innocents who become collateral damage. It’s a subject as relevant to a spy within the CIA as it is to any of us: That’s a point that—through the prism of Milo's humanity and the dangerous web in which he finds himself enmeshed—Steinhauer makes abundantly and thrillingly clear.”
—Los Angeles Times

Praise for The Tourist

“Here’s the best spy novel I’ve ever read that wasn’t written by John le Carré. . .It’s a complex story of betrayal anchored by a protagonist who’s as winning as he is wily.”
—Stephen King, Entertainment Weekly

“Remember John le Carré . . . when he wrote about beaten-down, morally directionless spies? In other words, when he was good? That's how Olen Steinhauer writes in this tale of a world-weary spook who can't escape the old game.”
—Time

“The kind of principled hero we long to believe still exists in fiction, if not in life.”
—The New York Times Book Review (Editor’s Choice)

 

About the Author

OLEN STEINHAUER is the New York Times bestselling author of eight novels, including The Tourist and The Nearest Exit, winner of the 2010 Dashiell Hammett Prize. He is also a two-time Edgar Award finalist and has been shortlisted for the Anthony, the Macavity, the Ellis Peters Historical Dagger, the Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, and the Barry awards. Raised in Virginia, he lives in Budapest, Hungary.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (March 13, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312622899
• ISBN-13: 978-0312622893
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (121 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #284,491 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Olen Steinhauer grew up in Virginia, and has since lived in Georgia, Mississippi, Pennsylvania, Texas, California, Massachusetts, and New York. Outside the US, he's lived in Croatia (when it was called Yugoslavia), the Czech Republic and Italy. He also spent a year in Romania on a Fulbright grant, an experience that helped inspire his first five books. He now lives in Hungary with his wife and daughter.

http://www.olensteinhauer.com

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 63 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Complex and intriguing. 4 ˝ stars. February 2, 2012

By Brian Baker VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Olen Steinhauer's third installment of the Tourist saga is a very complex tale of espionage and human vulnerability.

This third installment of the saga picks up where the last book left off. Milo Weaver is still recuperating from the gunshot wound he suffered, and has quit the CIA, preferring to focus his attentions on his family and starting a new career in the civilian world. His friend and former boss Alan Drummond is obsessed with seeking revenge for the slaughter of the Tourist section of the CIA of which he was chief. Chinese spymaster Xin Zhu, the mastermind of that massacre, is trying to consolidate his position in the espionage hierarchy of his country by identifying an American-controlled mole high up in the government bureaucracy that controls Chinese intelligence functions and departments.

How these complex and conflicting story lines converge and interact is the plot of this novel.

The opening segment of the book focuses on Xin's activities, and Weaver doesn't even enter onstage until well into the story. Overall, the book has a broader focus than the previous entries; not as much time on Weaver, and more focus on Xin. That actually serves the story well.

Many of the characters have very complex motivations, and act in ways that are confusing at first, until the resolution at the end of the book makes things clear. This is very well done, illustrating the moral complexity and ambiguity inherent in the world of espionage Steinhauer has created. In many ways this is reminiscent of themes Len Deighton and John Le Carre explored in their classic works in the genre.

Though there is action were appropriate, I wouldn't categorize this book as a "thriller". It's better than that. The characterizations are all fully realized with three-dimensional people. The plot is complex and fully developed, with a satisfying conclusion that isn't predictable.

Highly entertaining. 4 ˝ stars.

34 of 40 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Complex, At Times Confusing, Mostly Interesting Spy Story! February 10, 2012

By bobbewig TOP 1000 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

An American Spy is Olen Steinhauer's third novel featuring Milo Weaver. If you read the first two books in this series -- The Tourist and The Nearest Exit , both of which are excellent -- you know that Milo Weaver was a CIA "tourist," until almost all of his fellow operatives were decimated by a Chinese spymaster, and the clandestine Department of Tourism was shut down.

Now, in An American Spy, which I enjoyed a lot (but not as much as the other two), Milo's old boss is bent on revenge, and when he vanishes in London, Milo finds himself back in the shadow world of espionage, unsure who is an agent and who is the target, who is pulling the strings and who is being played. I won't say any more than this about the plot so that you can work your own way through unraveling all of the layers of intrigue, double crosses and plot twists.

Be forewarned that to an even greater extent than in The Tourist and The Nearest Exit, the experience of reading An American Spy is very complex and at times confusing, and will make you feel that you need a scorecard to keep track of the large cast of characters, particularly since many of the characters have Chinese names that will likely be unfamiliar to many readers. It is a reading experience that will require you to pay full attention throughout the book so that you can appreciate all of its nuances and, most importantly, so that you will be able to understand how all of the complicated and, at times, confusing elements get tied together by the end of the book. Also, be forewarned that An American Spy is not a fast-paced book and while it is a first-rate spy story, it is not an action-oriented thriller. An American Spy's strength is derived from Steinhauer's strong ability to create very realistic and fully dimensionalized characters, as well as plot elements that you will mostly find interesting (despite their complexity which will at times cause you to scratch your head while trying to keep up with what is happening, and why).

If you've been a fan of The Tourist and/or The Nearest Exit I'd highly recommend An American Spy -- even if you don't find it, on a relative basis, to be as good. I'm pretty certain that, in the absolute, you'll be glad you read it. However, I would not recommend An American Spy if it would be your first book in the series. I think that without the background into the large cast of characters and the history of events that took place in the earlier books you'll "drown in the sea of complexity" as you wade your way through An American Spy.

I hope that my review of what I think you'll find the reading experience to be like is helpful in deciding if An American Spy is a book for you.

28 of 33 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars What a mess April 5, 2012

By David Rodgers

Format:Hardcover

I don't usually write reviews but felt I needed to after reading this book. I have read all of Olen Steinhauer's books and was excited when the third book in the Milo Weaver saga was released. The book starts off well enough but by the time I had finished the book I had no idea what I had just read. Who was operating for who and what really was the point of any of the operations! It was a chore to get through the last 100 pages. I consider myself a fairly proficient reader but I was really confused by the time this book had ended.