The Nearest Exit [Hardcover]

Olen Steinhauer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 11, 2010

Milo Weaver has nowhere to turn but back to the CIA in Olen Steinhauer’s brilliant follow-up to the New York Times bestselling espionage novel The Tourist

 

The Tourist, Steinhauer’s first contemporary novel after his awardwinning historical series, was a runaway hit, spending three weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and garnering rave reviews from critics.

Now faced with the end of his quiet, settled life, reluctant spy Milo Weaver has no choice but to turn back to his old job as a “tourist.” Before he can get back to the CIA’s dirty work, he has to prove his loyalty to his new bosses, who know little of Milo’s background and less about who is really pulling the strings in the government above the Department of Tourism—or in the outside world, which is beginning to believe the legend of its existence. Milo is suddenly in a dangerous position, between right and wrong, between powerful self-interested men, between patriots and traitors—especially as a man who has nothing left to lose.

 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Milo Weaver, a former field agent with the CIA's clandestine Department of Tourism, returns to action after a stint in prison for alleged financial fraud in this intense sequel to The Tourist. His handlers want Weaver to pursue a mole rumored to have infiltrated the CIA's black-ops department, but with his loyalty in question, he must first undergo some test missions, one of which is to kill the 15-year-old daughter of Moldovan immigrants now living in Berlin. Such a horrific assignment further weakens Weaver's already wavering enthusiasm for his secret life, and he becomes increasingly preoccupied with reconnecting with his estranged wife and child. When bombshell revelations rock Weaver's world, he vows to somehow put international intelligence work behind him. Can he do so without jeopardizing his and his family's safety? Steinhauer's adept characterization of a morally conflicted spy makes this an emotionally powerful read. Author tour. (May)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* Since the events of The Tourist (2009), Milo Weaver has served time in prison, worked in administration, and tried to reconnect with his wife and daughter. But talk therapy is hard when you’re trained to keep secrets. When asked to return to the field, he agrees, although, because of his disgust with the Department of Tourism (a black-ops branch of the CIA), he plans to feed information to his father, Yevgeny Primakov, the “secret ear” of the UN. But his handlers don’t trust him, either, giving him a series of vetting assignments that culminates in an impossible loyalty test: the abduction and murder of a 15-year-old girl. Ironically, Weaver is then tasked with finding a security breach that threatens the very existence of Tourism—and the lives of the Tourists. Seeing his own brutal compatriots as humans, he does his best to save the thing he despises, a conundrum that pretty much sums up the shades of gray that paint this modern-day espionage masterpiece. The Tourist was impressive, proving that Steinhauer had the ability to leap from the historical setting of his excellent Eastern European quintet to a vividly imagined contemporary landscape. But this is even better, a dazzling, dizzyingly complex world of clandestine warfare that is complicated further by the affairs of the heart. Steinhauer never forgets the human lives at stake, and that, perhaps, is the now-older Weaver’s flaw: he is too human, too attached, to be the perfect spy. His failure to save the girl he was told to kill threads the whole book like barbed wire. --Keir Graff

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (May 11, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312622872
• ISBN-13: 978-0312622879
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (72 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #94,481 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

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 67 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 4 1/2 Stars -- Steinhauer Scores Big Again!, April 11, 2010

By 

bobbewig (New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Nearest Exit (Hardcover)

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The Nearest Exit is an excellent follow-up to Steinhauer's The Tourist. Like The Tourist, The Nearest Exit represents a first-class combination of complex, intelligent plotting and multi-dimensional characterization. Although, I have to admit that by the end of the first half of the book I was feeling that Steinhauer's latest was going to fall far short of The Tourist in terms of being a well-crafted espionage thriller. Be assured, however, that the second half of the book is so strong that it more than made up for my doubts and concerns about the first half. The Nearest Exit ultimately delivers an exciting story in which Milo Weaver, faced with the end of his quiet, settled life, has no choice but to turn back to his old job as a "tourist." But before being able to do so, he must prove his loyalty. This catapults him into a dangerous position; one in which he must decide between right and wrong, between powerful self-interested foes, between patriots and traitors and between life and death. Be aware that The Nearest Exit, perhaps even more than did The Tourist, requires the reader to use all of his/her mental abilities to help wade through all the layers of deceit and manipulation that must be uncovered to get to the truth. Further, you should be aware that The Nearest Exit may not be the book to read if you are looking to read a story that will have you physically trying to catch your breath in order to keep up with all the action and adventure. I highly recommend The Nearest Exit to anyone that enjoyed The Tourist, as well as to anyone who enjoys a complex, intelligent, moving spy novel in the best tradition of John Le Carre and Len Deighton (at least in their early days), Graham Greene and Alan Furst. I, for one, can't wait to "travel" with "tourist" Milo Weaver on his next thrilling, mentally-challenging, emotionally charged adventure. I suspect I'll have about a year to prepare myself to tour with Milo.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A worthy sequel to an outstanding spy thriller, May 10, 2010

By 

S. McGee (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Nearest Exit (Hardcover)

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Having loved The Tourist, I knew that I'd enjoy this sequel, if only to find out what happens to Milo Weaver after he goes on the run in order to clear his name -- and ends up losing his family and his freedom in order to do so. Now Weaver is out of jail and back in the 'Department of Tourism' -- but he's more deeply alienated than ever, and struggling to find a way to do his job in a way that doesn't violate what moral code he has managed to hang on to. The crunch comes when Weaver gets his latest assignment: a kill order for a very unlikely target that he just doesn't understand and can't bring himself to act on.

The plot hangs on that 'kill order', its target and the fallout from Weaver's qualms of conscience -- and it's an excellent and convoluted one, that never left me thinking "yeah, I saw that coming 50 pages ago." Many of the elements that I loved about the first book are still here in abundance -- the nuanced portrayal of characters who are never black and white and always human, such as the German spy who stops off nightly for a bottle of wine and a Snickers bar at her local shop but is quite capable of holding Milo Weaver hostage and using enhanced interrogation techniques on him -- but who later will go out of her way to assist his quest for some kind of justice and retribution for the TRULY villainous. Milo Weaver's world is a gritty, grey one, and even the end of the book doesn't offer much consolation if you're looking for a warm and fuzzy ending to his story. (Perhaps volume #3 in the Milo Weaver saga is in the works?)

I wouldn't suggest reading this book without reading its predecessor. True, the two stories are theoretically able to stand alone, but the characters' actions won't make much sense in isolation, particularly Milo's relationship with his wife and child and his birth father. That shouldn't be a hardship, as the first book is very good, and if you don't enjoy it, you won't like this that much. I've rated this 4.5 stars and rounded down, simply because the plot is even more convoluted, darting back and forth in time and space and character point of view, requiring even more concentration on the part of the reader. (It's not a book to pick up and put down casually, then try to reimmerse yourself in the story hours later...) There are a few loose ends in the plot line -- nothing that really destroys the pleasure of the book, but that can niggle away afterwards.

Highly recommended to spy novel afficionados.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Reluctant Tourist, July 28, 2010

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Michael Moore (Statesboro,, Georgia USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Nearest Exit (Hardcover)

I read The Tourist last year and liked the tongue in cheek style and the witty plotting. The Nearest Exit is the second book to feature Milo Weaver, the reluctant tourist. Both books are a cut above the genre and require the reader to pay a bit more attention than say a James Lee Burke or a Lee Child novel. The author who comes closest to Steinhauer is Charles McGarry. If you'd rather read than watch television and you are looking for some thoughtful entertainment...consider these two. It is best to read them in order.