The Last Tourist by Olen Steinhauer

#4 in the Milo Weaver/Tourist trilogy. Yes, that’s correct.

The Tourist, The Nearest Exit and An American Spy chronicled Milo Weaver’s career in the blackest of black op departments within the CIA. The Office of Tourism was the sharpest point of America’s clandestine spear. They go in. They kill. They leave.

But a Chinese intelligence officer figured it all out, got his hands on the proverbial roster of Tourists and effectively wiped them all out. All except Milo and his boss. Together, in the aftermath, they have taken over an independent intelligence gathering operation that had been set up by Milo’s father (guess the spy trade runs in his family as Milo’s sister is also involved). This operation is is the subject of The Last Tourist and is called The Library, which provides its clients (selected nation-states that have deep pockets) with high level intelligence that might directly or indirectly affect each country.

The Last Tourist details a vast, complex, and secretive conspiracy and its attempts to wipe out The Library, which is viewed as a threat. Think the Bilderberg Group is something to be feared? They don’t hold a candle to the group dreamed up by Steinhauer.

Steinhauer’s vivid imagination has crafted a conspiracy that is not about geopolitics, nation states, governments, or laws. That’s child’s play. The ultimate source of power and control is simply money. And currency knows no borders or boundaries, no elected officials or tinpot despots. It just is. The primary participants include a former CIA higher-up who stumbled across all the (supposedly) hidden files about their Office of Tourism that dated well back onto the Cold War era. She is (or was) married to the CEO of Northwell (a Halliburtan-ish conglomerate) that has used that information to secretly set up its own Office of Tourism that is now tasked with taking out Milo Weaver, his Librarians (country-specific information magnets) and all the genius programmers that hide, store, and encrypt the Library’s information.   

Other players determined to develop a new world order are MirGaz (Russian natural gas company; world’s largest), IfW (Germany’s massive investment bank), Touzi (middle eastern venture capitalists), Said Logistics (Omani shipping and transportation), and most importantly, Nexus (texting and messaging service with a reach beyond that of Facebook that guarantees anonymity and state of the art encryption). And they all meet each year to recruit clients at the annual World Economic Summit that meets in Davos.

Weaver is driven by two things. One is keeping the Library afloat and the other is protecting his wife and teenage daughter. They put up with and survived Milo’s career so far, but these new Tourists are even more ruthless. He’s not doing too well keeping The Library alive. Librarians and programmers are systematically being taken out even after they've all been told to go dark dark dark. And he's not just trying to stay a step ahead of these new Tourists. He doesn’t know who he can trust. Old friends may be against him and old enemies may be of some assistance - a scorecard would be helpful.

I’ve read (and reviewed here) most everything Steinhauer has written; search his name. you'll see. He is more from the Le Carre end of the espionage spectrum than he is from the Brad Thor or Vince Flynn end. While there is plenty of death and mayhem, the storyline and the exquisite presentation isn’t overwhelmed by violence. Pick this up because you really want it. Lightweight readers will get lost in the plot’s intricate complexity. Wouldn’t hurt to use a bookmark on which you can jot notes so you can keep track of the players and their fluid loyalties.

The challenge of The Last Tourist, if you choose to accept, will be best attacked by reading the Milo Weaver series in order. The Last Tourist will be really confusing for those reading it as a standalone. Having read the previous three, I was rewarded with a deep, thoughtful, multifaceted, layered, and successful conclusion (I think) to the Milo Weaver saga. But based on Steinhauer’s history, one never knows.

BTW, for those who don’t know, Steinhauer is the creative force behind the on-going series, Berlin Station, now on the EPIX Network, (season 1 in available on Amazon Prime). Haven’t watched it, but I will. With any luck, he’ll be able to get this Milo Weaver narrative on video.

East Coast Don

Available March 2020 (Thanx NetGalley). So mark your calendars.

All The Old Knives by Olen Steinhauer

Five years ago, a commercial flight landed in Vienna, but upon touchdown, four terrorists on board stopped the plane far from the terminal and, with over 120 hostages, demanded release of comrades in arms. It did not end well.

Today, Henry Pelham has been tasked with following up on a lead that has just surfaced. By dumb luck, an informant for the US was on board and, using his burner phone, was texting out what was happening up until the kidnappers discovered his presence, dragged him to the doorway, executed him and tossed him to the tarmac. 

Henry was part of the CIA’s Vienna station that day and, like everyone in the office, was running around like mad trying to find a way to resolve this peacefully. With this new information, his boss has him interviewing former co-workers in an attempt to determine if the leak came from within their own ranks. He’s interviewed most everyone and hit dead ends. One more to interview. Celia Favreau, nee Harrison at the time. Henry’s flame when both were posted in Vienna.

Celia and Henry were set to move in together when the plane was commandeered. But she broke it off when the siege ended and shortly afterward, took up with a General Motors exec, got married, quit the service and moved to Carmel, CA to raise a family. Harry has made an appointment to have dinner with Celia in Carmel so they can go over details from that awful day five years previous.

The small restaurant is empty except for a lone diner; late dinners midweek in Carmel tend to be pretty private affairs. Henry and Celia, because of or in spite of their previous relationship do a bit of a tap dance with each other to see what each remembers from that day, much of which revolves around a single phone call from a section chief’s phone that day. No one seems to know who made the call or who was actually on the other end of the call. The only thing known is the call was from a CIA line to Amman, Jordan. Shortly afterwards, the unfortunate asset was unceremoniously tossed to the tarmac. After action reports had no mention of the phone call.

Steinhauer catapulted into my power rotation with The Tourist back in 2009 and his followups, An American Spy, and The Nearest Exit were also top drawer espionage thrillers in the mold of the greats like LeCarre and Greene. Read all his earlier efforts, too, that were mostly based in an unnamed Eastern European country. Steinhauer is an exceptionally skilled writer of traditional espionage novels set in current circumstances. 

Steinhauer's latest, All The Old Knives, takes a different slant on the theme. Despite my comments above, this book takes place almost entirely over dinner and supplemented with the occasional flashback to the awful day. The delicate and cagy exchanges between Celia and Henry are what this book is all about and Steinhauer pulls it off in style with periodic reveals and unsuspected twists in a conversation between two spooks, both skilled in manipulation and deception. 

The acknowledgements page (you do read those, don’t you? You should) says that Steinhauer was fascinated by a Masterpiece presentation of a story called The Song of Lunch, where the entire show took place during a meal. It got him wondering if he could do the same in his genre. The result is a short book, longer than a novella, but certainly shorter than his other titles - easily read on a morning of any weekend. I’d say he was successful. 

East Coast Don

The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer

I do love it when one of my power rotation authors comes out with a new book - especially when they really deliver, like this one.

Budapest, 2011. Emmett Kohl, a mid-level career diplomat, and his wife Sophie are in a restaurant when Emmett starts to confront Sophie about an affair she had during his last assignment in Cairo. The conversation hasn't gone too far when this Albanian bull of a man walks up, calls Emmett by name and then puts 2 bullets in Emmett's head.

The assassination of a nothing diplomat starts a chain of events that stretches from Budapest to Cairo, Munich, Frankfort, Libya, the former Yugoslavia; even Langley and Alexandria, VA.

It's right after the Arab Spring uprising in Egypt and any mid-management and above bureaucrat in government is worried about their future, especially those in security. Around 2005, a young Libyan-born CIA analyst named Jabril proposed a plan (Stumbler) to destabilize Libya and get rid of Gadhafi. It began with the kidnapping of exiled revolutionaries, organizing the various factions into one and insert them back into Libya and get busy. But the CIA said no and the plan ended in a folder. In 2011, Jabril notices scattered news reports of kidnapped Libyans around Europe and thinks someone has co-opted his plan and put it into motion. He heads for Cairo to go overland to the border with Libya to see if and how his plan is going. He actually thinks that someone stole the plan and that the CIA is going to try and ride its back to Gadhafi's demise and take credit when Jabril knows the only way for regime change is from within, not from the CIA.

Instead of accompanying Emmett's body back to Boston, Sophie goes to Cairo to see her old flame in an attempt to get information about Emmett's murder.

And this is where Steinhauer is without peer.

This exotic world is littered with governmental agents from across the globe watching each other, on their own side or not. Spies from a couple Egyptian security bureaus, the US embassy attaches (code word for CIA), Hungary, Croatia, and more are playing the 'perhaps', 'what if', 'maybe', 'could be' game with who has what information and what's happening with said information and just how does it related back to a weeklong visit to Yugoslavia in 1991 by newlyweds Kohl just as that country was splitting at the seams. The cynicism of the agents contrasts with the optimism of the Arab Spring. The  problem is that there "could be no new world . . . because the people who filled it would be the same ones as yesterday."

This standalone (I think) book is not part of a hell-bent-for-leather ball buster series like Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp. After Emmett is killed, the only 'action' is a brief ambush on the Egypt-Libyan border. Other than that, it's all about trying to peel the onion to get to the ultimate truth behind Emmett's murder, Stumbler, and who knew what, when, where, and why about the flickering connections. Steinhauer cleverly tells the story from the viewpoint of the various main characters that shift forward or back in time so that connections are seen once something is repeated, but seen in a different light. Could be confusing to the reader if from a writer with lesser skills, but Steinhauer never faltered and never lost me as he told this convoluted tale that covers only about a week or 10 days.

LeCarre and Graham Greene carried the espionage banner for years. Following up his Tourist series, Steinhauer has demonstrated he really does need to be considered alongside those 2 greats.

ECD

You Know What's Going On by Olen Steinhauer

A first for me - a 'single' as defined by Kindle. A bit too long for a short story, but well short of a full-fledged novel. I doubt many are going to run out and spend the $0.99 at Amazon for this short story, so I'll reveal all. This review, too, shall be short.

4 players: Paul, Sam, Nabil, Benjamin - 2 CIA agents, a Somali, and a Kenyan policeman, plus a fat Kenyan politician.

A CIA agent is trying to buy information from a Somali who is a member of the new splinter group Aslim Taslam. The deal is struck in Rome. The money and information is to be exchanged in Nairobi. Simple enough. Sam asks Paul, a fellow agent, to act as a banker to facilitate the transfer of money in Nairobi. Two colleagues, Said and Lorenzo, are beheaded in Rome.   That fat politician, loyal only to money ("No one ever pays enough.") attends to broker the exchange between Paul (as banker) and Nabil (as terrorist/recipient). The transfer goes south when only Sam's hand is delivered to complete the fingerprint ID necessary to complete the exchange. Paul flips out, is killed, then the house explodes.

This story, read over breakfast on a Sunday morning, is essentially the same tale told from the perspective of each of the 4 main players. And with each 'chapter', we learn a little more. Paul panicked during a surveillance op that resulted in the execution of Said and Lorenzo. Those two were killed by Nabil as a test ordered by an Iman to see just how far Nabil would go in the name of jihad. Said was Sam's lover, so Sam cooks up a scheme to avenge Said's death and in so doing probably get himself killed. Sam hires Benjamin to fix the 'bank' computer with a bomb. Sam is captured in Nairobi, the fat politician kills Sam, cuts off Sam's hands, forces Paul to start the transfer process, does the fingerprint ID, and the house goes up in a massive explosion.

See? Even a 'single' can have a layered plot typical of that which Steinhauer is deservedly known for. A welcome tease as we await his upcoming novel that can not come too soon. Honestly, I don't know what modern author is telling classic espionage tales as well as Steinhauer.

East Coast Don

An American Spy by Olen Steinhauer

The crown jewel of my late troika.

The Tourist, The Nearest Exit, and now An American Spy; the final chapter in the Milo Weaver saga . . . we think.

As you may or may not recall, a Tourist is a CIA killer, called to go in, do a job, and get out. Milo Weaver was one such Tourist, but was getting reluctant about his call and longed to get out to be with his family back in NYC. In The Nearest Exit, the Chinese director of one of the myriad of China's security directorates, Xin Zhu, took out his revenge against the Office of Tourism (the CIA was part and parcel responsible for his son's death in Sudan) with a clever and intricate plot to wipe the Tourists and was quite successful, killing 33 of the 40 Tourists. That book ended with Milo being gut shot by a Moldavian who blamed Milo for his daughter's death. This book picks up in 2008 just after Milo's convalescence.

The Office of Tourism has been closed. Allan Drummond, Milo's former director and now friendly neighbor in NYC, was summarily dismissed for his failures. And Allan is close to going off the deep end. Xin Zhu, the mastermind behind the plot to destroy the Office has his own troubles deep in China's secret committees of back room power. His plan had not received approval, but he went ahead with it anyway and Xin has to answer for his insubordination. Drummond becomes estranged from his wife, takes a circuitous route to London where he disappears. Drummond's erratic behavior worries Milo and he gets to looking to see what he might have missed that might lead to Drummond's whereabouts. Everyone assumes it's blind rage to get back at Xin Zhu.

Lest you think this will be a fairly linear plot of Drummond tracking Xin with Milo close behind, not know if he should let Drummond succeed or try and stop him, remember who we are dealing with. Steinhauer quite possibly sits at the top of the espionage mountain where his rarified air lets him layer a complex multinational plot of deceit, manipulation, confusion, intrigue, murder, and cover-ups where no one really knows what or how much the other knows and everyone tries to sift out that critical bit of clarity from the mounds of supposition, implication, and guesses that are the lifeblood of intelligence gathering.

There are a lot of players in this game - shadowy CIA bosses, senators, DC power brokers, a young Chinese Mata Hari, all manner of Chinese bureaucrats wanting power while covering their asses for past indiscretions, moles on both sides, the German intelligence network, Milo's family, a Chinese domestic terror network, Hammond's wife, Milo's father (a Russian and former KGB type now running an ultra-secret band of his own agents from within the UN), Milo's stepsister, those 4 surviving tourists. Everyone has a stake is whether Hammond is successful or not and what Milo will do when he catches up with Hammond.

Steinhauer takes the unusually creative tact by stringing the reader along with chapters covering the same territory as seen by all those various players. With each chapter, a new wrinkle is unveiled to help us see the what, where, why, and how the hell's of this complex story that ties up most of the loose ends from the previous two books in such a way that the reader, while having to piece together so many plot points, still leaves satisfied at the end because by all indications, we are not done with Milo and Drummond.

I've said it before. While I enjoy the rollicking, rampaging, kick-ass plots of Vince Flynn, Brad Thor, and others in the political thriller genre, I'm going to have to read a lot of espionage authors to find anyone who deserves to even be in the foothills of the mountain ruled over by Steinhauer. Be warned. Complexity is the predecessor to confusion which ultimately leads to some measure of enlightenment. And all this requires some work out of the reader so be prepared for a dizzying ride though what is far more likely the reality of nation-state espionage.

East Coast Don

36 Yalta Boulevard by Olen Steinhauer

Remember Brano Sev? He works for the Ministry of State Security in the capital of Olen Stenhauer's unnamed Eastern European country. He's been assigned to be the new rezident in Vienna in search of a double agent code named Gravillo. But an underling there wants the job, frames Brano with a murder and sends him back to the capital where he is summarily demoted to assembling tractor gauges.

Six months later, his old boss gets him off the line and sends him to his hometown to investigate a source suspected of selling information to the highest bidder. But Brano again is blamed for a murder. But with a little help manages to get out of the basement of Yalta Blvd and crosses the border into Austria.

Once there, and under the watchful eye of Austrian authorities, is told by his former boss to wait. From here, we are witness to the drudgery of surveillance, intrigue, and guesswork about just what the hell is going on. Who is pulling his chain? Who can be trusted? And who are all these shadows following him? Gavrillo? Good question.

This is the 3rd in his five part series of post WWII espionage/police procedural novels, leaving me with just one remaining. These stories are old school espionage, which means its probably more akin to what the spy game really was at the time. No piles of dead bodies, car chases, beautiful women, automatic weapons, and blowing up everything in sight. No, sir. This is about manipulation, sources, interrogation (torture optional), assembling puzzles, threats, cover-ups, dead drops, play-counterplay. Have mercy can Steinhauer weave a complicated tale. Not for those wanting mindless entertainment. Be warned. You have to work for it.

East Coast Don

The Confession by Olen Steinhauer

Remember that Steinhauer's The Tourist put him on my power rotation after a single book. That was actually his 6th book. He has a series of 5 post WWII mysteries, one per decade beginning in the 1940s (The Bridge of Sighs). This is my third from that series, but it's actually the 2nd and takes place in the 1950s in Steinhauer's unnamed eastern European country and its capital.

Militia detective Ferenc Koleyeszar's marriage is falling apart. A long vacation at the family dacha only seemed to make things worse so a return home is not a happy prospect. He is sure his wife has been cheating with one of his co-workers. He is also a one-time author who can't seem to find his muse despite the encouragement of his writer-poet-artist-anarchist contemporaries who sit around smoking and drinking complaining that "plot is a capitalist construct to give lives a false sense of totality." Sounds like my college days in the bars. While the group rattles on, Ferenc plays with the rings on each of his fingers and fantasizing about the wife of a group member. What the rings represent is one of those "are you shitting me?" moments.

Work should be a welcome break from his crumbling life. How is this for a break: a party dignitary's wife disappears. An artist of some notoriety is found with his arms and legs broken, bound and hog-tied, and burned to a crisp in an abandoned warehouse in the canal district. The artist's wife turns up dead. A French mentor to the writer's group becomes stranger by the day. Records from a cold case about the death of a militia co-worker indicate a possible connection to some of the current murders. Moscow has sent someone (that's code for KGB) to help the militia office and befriends Brano Sev, a cop no one trusts (but is the major character in Liberation Movements, book #3). A friend in the group, Georgi, gets the call from internal security for a 'document check' (that's code for a nasty train ride to an even nastier work camp). An eccentric painter, jailed for 10 years, is getting released and a student demonstration, which Ferenc would prefer to join, goes bad and puts him in the crosshairs of the KGB officer on loan. Ferenc thinks, "if this isn't the most wonderful of times, then please don't let me know."

At least his wife isn't cheating with that co-worker. That was a one-time thing years ago. She tells him that she is actually carrying on with his partner - the first of a number of confessions.

The missing wife ran away from an abusive husband who kept her locked up and drugged. When Ferenc learns the details and finds the wife, he exercises his own brand of justice by giving her money for a train ticket to Moscow and her family, then plays dumb with the husband. At least Georgi is not sent to a camp and is so happy he "could stall a Volga."

All the murders have a connection that is all about artistic envy, jealousy, infidelity, fame, and revenge, the sweetest of all motives. Stenhauer paints a grim picture of 1950s behind the developing Iron Curtain where checking into to the Metropol hotel will "end up on its daily report to internal security". But it's not all atmosphere. Ferenc is on one hand a deeply flawed detective and husband, making judgmental decisions about actions in the interrelated cases all the while passing judgement on his wife as he has a masochistic affair with another's wife and nails a hotel clerk on an overnight trip to a work camp, the "memory and knowledge of which kills his serenity."

A momentary lapse while policing that student demonstration has put a chip in the pocket of the KBG, but that officer tells Ferenc that all transgressions will be forgiven with a confession, a confession that Ferenc knows will put him in a work camp. But at least his wife will not be drawn in and will be well cared for by his partner, her lover.

Sounds like a downer and maybe it is, but I find Steinhauer's graceful, fluid writing style to be the real subject and hopefully, the chosen quotes might give a short preview of what awaits. He may have been nominated for numerous awards and been on a number of 'best of the year' lists, but he doesn't seem to have the following of other contemporaries.

Two more to go - 36 Yalta Blvd and Victory Square.

East Coast Don

Liberation Movements by Olen Steinhauer

1968. Prague. Peter Husak is a student in music theory when the Russian tanks are rolling into town. He and 2 student friends make a dash for the border, but Peter is captured. In his interrogation, the Slovak security officer notices something very peculiar about Peter. He sees just how adept Peter is at lying. A trait that the secret police might find valuable.

1975. Detective Libarid Terzian is unhappy in his marriage and the upcoming conference on terrorism in Istanbul gives him a chance to maybe bolt from his current situation. In the waiting area of the airport, he notices a reasonably attractive woman accompanied by a brute of an escort. He also spots a couple really nervous looking guys, constantly at the pay phone, sweating and smoking cigarettes. He also spots, amongst the ministry watchers, an odd character watching everyone else (Libarid is a detective after all).

He is seated on the flight next to the woman who, in casual conversation, tells Libarid who the others are and what each will be doing in the next few minutes. And each does as she said they would do. She must be part of some plot.

At the Istanbul airport, Detective Brano Sev and the young officer he is mentoring are awaiting Libarid's arrival when word comes that the flight blew up over Bulgaria with 80-some people aboard. The hijackers were Armenian as was Libarid.

This sets the stage for an investigation of the disaster by Detective Sev and Gavra Noukas. What first appears to be a political statement gone wrong takes multiple unforeseen twists as Sev and Noukas uncover tiny bits of information that may or may not have some connection with some disruptive operations by Socialist operations.

Was this all about the hijackers and their political cause? Was this a hit on Libarid and if so, why on an airplane with so many innocents on board? And what about this odd women with the seeming ability to read people's thoughts and predict with such accuracy what people will do? Was she the target? If so, by whom? And just who the hell is/was Peter, whose capture and interrogation opens the book and what does his past have to do with the bombing of the flight? Just how do the bombing, a homosexual encounter, Libarid, Sev, Peter, psychological experiments, a years old murder all connect?

This is the 4th Steinhauer book and I can guarantee you it will not be my last. His more recent titles (The Tourist and The Nearest Exit) are current CIA thrillers full of complex plotting and intricate deceptions. He has a series of books, based as 1 per decade, about crime and espionage in Eastern Europe. The first, Bridge of Sighs, was set in the 1940s. I skipped a couple decades to the 70s with this book and in doing so, missed the introduction of Detective Sev (Emil Brod, the rookie cop in Bridge, is a minor character as a police chief).

I've offered high praise for Steinhauer's storytelling. His carefully layered plots are intricate, deftly paced, revealing tiny bits and pieces of the intertwining stories for the reader to assemble until the puzzle's final image becomes clear in one of those, "Aha" moments so eagerly awaited. I think I would be wise to jump back to the 1950s with The Confession and work forward in order. Don't let the Slavic names, locations, and geographic references to a fictional country stop you from venturing into these crime/espionage mystery-thrillers. It's worth the effort for readers who like complex plotting reminiscent of LeCarre, Deighton, Forsyth, et al. Lovers of spy/mystery novels in the 'old sense' (not the current wave of techno-thrillers ushered in by Tom Clancy), should be on the lookout for Steinhauer.

East Coast Don

The Nearest Exit by Olen Steinhauer

As I recall, when we last left Milo Weaver at the conclusion of The Tourist, he was pulled as a CIA Tourist (the dirtiest part of the messy US intelligence network) deemed no longer dependable and under investigation for financial misconduct. Cleared and essentially broke, he has to go back into the field and prove himself to his bosses.

The Nearest Exit opens with a conspiracy nut and mostly failed American journalist living in Budapest receiving a letter from the deceased former head of the blackest of the black CIA projects, the Office of Tourism, telling him a grand tale and to trust only Milo Weaver. Within 24hr of receiving the letter, Henry Gray has been assaulted and tossed over a balcony only to survive, ending up in a coma. When he recovers, he ditches the hospital and goes into hiding. Seems the Office of Tourism was behind the assassination of a Muslim cleric in Sudan (an underlying plot point in The Tourist) that resulted in massive rioting and innocent deaths on a wide scale.

Milo is doing small jobs back as a Tourist which he does grudgingly, but balks when he is ordered to abduct, kill and dispose of a 15 year old Moldavian girl living with her parents in Germany. The moral ambiguity required to be a Tourist is lost on Milo who is the rare operative with a wife and step daughter, despite that their marriage is a bit strained. He forms a plan to abduct the girl, but keep her safe until he decides how to proceed. Unfortunately, the plans of a Tourist do not routinely go as planned.

Milo has also been ordered to vet a Ukrainian seeking asylum who claims to know of a mole within the Department of Tourism supposedly being run by the Chinese who lost a hold on oil in Sudan after the assassination and resulting riots. If true, the Office of Tourism will be shut down and a vindictive Senator will gladly slam the door shut for good.

Enter an experienced, obese, Riesling-chugging, Snickers-addicted mid level German intelligence operative named Erika. With some dogged investigation, she identifies Milo as the abductor, captures him (under the radar) and using some creative interview techniques finds out enough about the abduction to believe Milo and actually help him out a bit.

The story twists and turns through an almost dizzying array of plots as Milo tries to determine if the mole does indeed exist and why did that 15yo girl end up dead on the side of the road in France. As he thinks he has figured out, Milo quits in disgust and heads to NYC to repair his marriage when during a counseling session, a random word by his wife sends him back to the Office of Tourism, now having reordered some clues leading to different interpretations tying the mole hunt to the death of the girl.

While the Chicago Sun Times says Charlie Stella is "the best crime novelist you are not reading," Stephen King says Steinhauer's The Tourist is "the best spy novel that wasn't written by LeCarre." The Nearest Exit is richly plotted, intricately staged, and elegantly composed and paced. The intertwined plots are complex and confusing, best read in long sittings rather than a few pages at a time. While Steinhauer summarizes plot points from The Tourist, it might be best to read Tourist first to get a real feel for not only the moral damage Milo has suffered, but also the multilayer plotting that is reminiscent of early LeCarre.

A most interesting character is really not even portrayed; the Chinese spy-master pulling strings all over the world. Just why is he after the Office of Tourism? As Steinhauer deftly ties up loose ends, we are hit multiple times with a haymaker that does little to help neatly end the story with every bit of dirt swept out the door - a Steinhauer trait.

As I recall, people go after another government for ideology, greed, or passion. Add revenge to that list . . . and I defy the reader to see just where revenge enters here. That it's so hard to find is a tribute to Steinhauer's skills as a storyteller of complex, layered spy thrillers. Part 3 of the Milo Weaver trilogy will be on my must read list the day it is released.

East Coast Don

The Bridge of Sighs by Olen Steinhauer

The is my 2nd Steinhauer book, having recently posted an enthusiastic statement on his most recent book The Tourist. As stated then, Steinhauer has a series of post WWII books, set as 1/decade. I decided to go in order and this is the first. I thought the Cold War series would be espionage, but this was a murder mystery set in an un-named slavic Iron Curtain country. It took me maybe 50-75 pages to get going with this book, but once I got all the characters in place in my mind, this was a real page turner; even for his first novel, this showed a talent in the making.

Eastern Europe is struggling with its new identity after WWII. Three years after the war, cities are still bombed out shells, families are starving, gypsies wander the streets, with prostitutes, snitches, and crimes against property rampant. Emil Brod is a 22yo new graduate of the Police Academy wanting to be assigned to homicide and gets assigned to the capital. He lives with his grandparents. His parents were war casualties and his grandparents harbor significant resentment toward the Russians. An informant looking for some favorable treatment tells the police that the government is placing a spy in the ranks of the militia right before Emil is assigned, so when you-know-who joins the homicide squad, he is shunned, harassed, and hazed during his first weeks almost to the point of quitting.

Desperate for his first case, his chief gives has him investigate the murder of a composer of patriotic music who was beaten beyond recognition and his apartment torn apart. Shortly after, the apartment superintendent is found in the same condition, floating in the river. After talking with everyone in the building, Inspector Brod heads for the country to see the wife. Turns out they were separated, soon to be divorced. She is reasonably well off and mostly supported her husbands lifestyle and whoring in the capital. Needless to say Emil takes a shine to the damsel in distress. She has been visited by persons unknown for an item her husband had, but she has no clue. The item is a photograph of a rising party member, soon to be elevated to the politburo.

Brod follows some clues from the capital to Berlin where it turns out the composer led a double life with a lover who runs a transvestite club. This raging queen gives Emil some clues that take Emil to the American sector and an underground bunker of old Nazi records the Allies are cataloguing. Turns out the politburo-to-be member has a dark past, working both sides of the war depending on who was winning. He was an informant for the Gestapo, a hero of Mother Russia killing Germans by the dozens (including an entire squad of teenage German volunteers) and the photo shows him receiving the Iron Cross from a Gestapo Colonel; a photo that the composer was using for extortion. The photo is not good publicity for a rising influential member of the party whom most think is a hero of mother Russia so this murdering war opportunist is trying to cover up tracks and destroy evidence.

Any experienced reader of mysteries can guess the end - the politburo guy ends up on trial and sentenced to death, Brod gets the girl and is accepted by his squad coworkers, grandfather opens up about an atrocity committed on his wife, and the Gestapo Colonel dies the death of a pauper.

In some ways, this was sort of a variation on the same theme of A Few Good Men - a viscous crime, the request by the government for a rookie to investigate and the green recruit solving the crime even though higher-ups now want him off the case. Steinhauer paints a picture of Eastern Europe in the midst of the post-war struggle with Russia emerging as their not-so-benevolent policeman. The desperation of the proles (proletariat) attempting to find their way in the new collectivism is a background that most readers of commercial US mystery should find both fascinating and heartbreaking. What men will do to hide their past and gain political power wells up from items hidden behind a refrigerator to the parlors of future power brokers. If this was life as it really was in the late 1940's, it's a miracle that some semblance of a society emerged.

East Coast Don

The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer

In Stephen King I trust.

Each May in Entertainment Weekly magazine, King gives 10 suggestions for summer reading. From this I was referred to Ken Bruen and Robert Goddard, those 2 UK mystery writers I have recently gushed over. From Kings’ list this time, I chose The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer.

Milo Weaver is a burnt out CIA operative now living in Brooklyn and working as a mid level manager for the super secret pinnacle of the immediate response pyramid of the CIA called the Bureau of Tourism. The agents, Tourists, are ordered around various regions of the world to be the sharp end of the CIA’s sword and Milo was legendary. But one bad incident in Venice sends him to NYC and out of the field. From there he’s been tracking an assassin, code named Tiger, and actually catches up to him in, of all places, Tennessee. The post-interrogation suicide of Tiger sets the CIA and Homeland Security at each other’s throats. Circumstances force Milo back underground backtracking clues given by Tiger. This opens up a complex array of intrigue, betrayal, manipulation, secrecy, lies, deception and any other trite description of espionage. Who is controlling whom? Is it a rogue administrator or the general culture within the CIA? What of Milo’s current family and his own obscure parentage? Is he rogue, a patriot, a double agent, or a sacrificial lamb? And just how can a few seemingly unconnected assassinations by a skilled killer cause ripples of political, energy, and social upheaval in Germany, Italy, Sudan, and China including the brink of interagency warring between the CIA and Homeland Security?

This is my first Steinhauer book and is the first of a planned trilogy of Milo Weaver books. When I looked him up on the Internet (http://www.olensteinhauer.com/bio.html), I see he is an American expat who has lived most of his young adult life in Europe, currently in Hungary. His forte is convoluted and layered espionage; not the high rolling, freewheeling books with high body counts, exotic weaponry, and barely plausible plots. He has a series of cold war novels, set as 1/decade of that era that I will be sure to start in on and soon. I read the occasional review and more than once saw that the complexity of plot and layers of betrayal and deception rival that of early LeCarre, extremely high praise indeed. If there is another current author putting together such intricate plots and characters of depth and honor, I want to know who it is. This guy is writing absolutely top-drawer, first-rate espionage that, for unknown reasons, rests somewhat under the radar of popular fiction readers obsessed with Grisham, Brown, et al.

I also learned that The Tourist has been optioned off to Hollywood with George Clooney set to play Milo, due out in 2010. I don’t know how well this will translate to the screen because of its complexity, but with that kind of star power, I am sure it will draw well.