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Milo Weaver #3
An American Spy: A Novel
From the author of New York Times bestseller The Tourist...
With only a handful of CIA-trained assassins―code "tourists"―left, Milo Weaver is more than ready to return to his cherished role as a husband and father. But his former CIA boss, Alan Drummond, can't let the job 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 has no choice but to 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, one of the best espionage writers 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.
With only a handful of CIA-trained assassins―code "tourists"―left, Milo Weaver is more than ready to return to his cherished role as a husband and father. But his former CIA boss, Alan Drummond, can't let the job 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 has no choice but to 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, one of the best espionage writers 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.
544 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published March 13, 2012
377 people are currently reading
2999 people want to read
About the author
Olen Steinhauer
32 books1,240 followersOlen 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.
He has published stories and poetry in various literary journals over the years. His first novel, The Bridge of Sighs (2003), the start of a five-book sequence chronicling Cold War Eastern Europe, one book per decade, was nominated for five awards.
The second book of the series, The Confession, garnered significant critical acclaim, and 36 Yalta Boulevard (The Vienna Assignment in the UK), made three year-end best-of lists. Liberation Movements (The Istanbul Variations in the UK), was listed for four best-of lists and was nominated for an Edgar Award for best novel of the year. The final novel in the series, Victory Square, published in 2007, was a New York Times editor's choice.
With The Tourist, he has left the Cold War behind, beginning a trilogy of spy tales focused on international deception in the post 9/11 world. Happily, George Clooney's Smoke House Films has picked up the rights, with Mr. Clooney scheduled to star.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/olenst...
He has published stories and poetry in various literary journals over the years. His first novel, The Bridge of Sighs (2003), the start of a five-book sequence chronicling Cold War Eastern Europe, one book per decade, was nominated for five awards.
The second book of the series, The Confession, garnered significant critical acclaim, and 36 Yalta Boulevard (The Vienna Assignment in the UK), made three year-end best-of lists. Liberation Movements (The Istanbul Variations in the UK), was listed for four best-of lists and was nominated for an Edgar Award for best novel of the year. The final novel in the series, Victory Square, published in 2007, was a New York Times editor's choice.
With The Tourist, he has left the Cold War behind, beginning a trilogy of spy tales focused on international deception in the post 9/11 world. Happily, George Clooney's Smoke House Films has picked up the rights, with Mr. Clooney scheduled to star.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/olenst...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 509 reviews
May 31, 2020
If you like spy novels, this trilogy has a real feel to it. It tells the story from the human side of the character, and makes him real rather than some kind of super hero. This series is second right after I am Pilgrim. I highly recommend them.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.
David Putnam author of The Bruno Johnson series.
August 2, 2020
When I first started reading the Milo Weaver books I remember thinking he is the only espionage /spy novelist I have read who is in John le Carré class. I’m not the only reviewer or critic making that comparison. An American Spy continues that rich tradition but with the Chinese, rather than le Carré Cold War Soviets as adversaries.
Milo Weaver is a former member of a super secret unit of the CIA, known as the Department of Tourism where the agents are known as Tourists. They are famous within certain high levels for their abilities to move in and out of countries leaving about the same trails behind as ghosts. They are also celebrated for their success as assassins. Many people believe the Tourists are a fable.
A few months ago a distraught father, mistakenly believing Weaver murdered his fifteen year old daughter shot Weaver in front of his wife and daughter. A very high level Chinese intelligence operative, Xin Zhu, aimed the father at Weaver, while at the same time orchestrating the murder of 33 Tourists, decimating the Department and causing its dissolution. Its brand new director, Alan Drummond was blamed and fired. The action takes place in 2008 just before the Olympics being held in Beijing.
Drummond decides to become a one man (almost) wrecking crew and seeks to take down Xin Zhu. Drummond easily obtains the help of the remaining three Tourists and tries to draw in Milo Weaver who had quit before the Department’s end.
It is quite some time before Weaver enters An American Spy. The beginning shows the alarms of two vastly different spy agencies, one in Germany, the other in China as the surviving Tourists start their offense.
During the Xin Zhu section, we get a look at the various high levels of the Chinese government’s intelligence apparatus that seems to seek to destroy themselves. Picture maybe a creature trying to eat itself, an ouroboros perhaps? Paranoia and jealousy is a true legacy of the Cultural Revolution.
Drummond disappears in London and fearing for his family’s safety, Weaver is finally drawn into Drummond’s insane revenge plot.
Don’t make the mistake of having expectations of knowing what is going to happen next. You will be wrong, and then you will be shocked. I think the British word is gobsmacked.
An American Spy is original in making families and the costs they pay an integral part of the story. Is that man really a parent, or is he scoping out Weaver’s daughter? Who tossed the apartment? The good guys or the bad guys or is it always possible to tell the difference? What about…well paranoia just ain’t for the paranoids.
Steinhauer tells his story using several POVs, making for a richer novel. This does have the disadvantage of Weaver not being the strongest character. But that’s okay, after the two previous Tourism novels, he deserves a bit of a rest.
I’ve read reviews complaining about the book’s intricacies. That’s the real world of intelligence. Rarely is intelligence, especially an active operation able to get to point b from point A. Nice to find a writer who refuses to dumb down his story, or to make it about absurd Bond wannabes either.
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.
Milo Weaver is a former member of a super secret unit of the CIA, known as the Department of Tourism where the agents are known as Tourists. They are famous within certain high levels for their abilities to move in and out of countries leaving about the same trails behind as ghosts. They are also celebrated for their success as assassins. Many people believe the Tourists are a fable.
A few months ago a distraught father, mistakenly believing Weaver murdered his fifteen year old daughter shot Weaver in front of his wife and daughter. A very high level Chinese intelligence operative, Xin Zhu, aimed the father at Weaver, while at the same time orchestrating the murder of 33 Tourists, decimating the Department and causing its dissolution. Its brand new director, Alan Drummond was blamed and fired. The action takes place in 2008 just before the Olympics being held in Beijing.
Drummond decides to become a one man (almost) wrecking crew and seeks to take down Xin Zhu. Drummond easily obtains the help of the remaining three Tourists and tries to draw in Milo Weaver who had quit before the Department’s end.
It is quite some time before Weaver enters An American Spy. The beginning shows the alarms of two vastly different spy agencies, one in Germany, the other in China as the surviving Tourists start their offense.
During the Xin Zhu section, we get a look at the various high levels of the Chinese government’s intelligence apparatus that seems to seek to destroy themselves. Picture maybe a creature trying to eat itself, an ouroboros perhaps? Paranoia and jealousy is a true legacy of the Cultural Revolution.
Drummond disappears in London and fearing for his family’s safety, Weaver is finally drawn into Drummond’s insane revenge plot.
Don’t make the mistake of having expectations of knowing what is going to happen next. You will be wrong, and then you will be shocked. I think the British word is gobsmacked.
An American Spy is original in making families and the costs they pay an integral part of the story. Is that man really a parent, or is he scoping out Weaver’s daughter? Who tossed the apartment? The good guys or the bad guys or is it always possible to tell the difference? What about…well paranoia just ain’t for the paranoids.
Steinhauer tells his story using several POVs, making for a richer novel. This does have the disadvantage of Weaver not being the strongest character. But that’s okay, after the two previous Tourism novels, he deserves a bit of a rest.
I’ve read reviews complaining about the book’s intricacies. That’s the real world of intelligence. Rarely is intelligence, especially an active operation able to get to point b from point A. Nice to find a writer who refuses to dumb down his story, or to make it about absurd Bond wannabes either.
Thank you to NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review.
May 11, 2013
Where is Milo?
With the first two books in this series, "The Tourist" and "Nearest Exit", Milo Weaver brilliantly takes center stage as a CIA agent who works for a secret sub-division known as the Department of Tourism. Milo is a different kind of spy, suicidal, smart and sometimes funny in a sad defeated kind of way. He is good at handling his assignments even if it is an an unorthodox fashion. He is given the minimal amount of information on his assignment which make them even more difficult. He travels all over the world, using several fictitious names. Even Milo Weaver is not his real name. He is fluent in German and Russian, stealing to raise money for his work, pissing off his boss and even killing when he has to. He gets his ass kicked and he is emotionally destroyed at times, and he is addicted to amphetamines. Milo has to stay alert to keep from being killed. But Milo has a soft side. He is married to a woman he has to lie to and as a result she leaves him. And he has a six year old daughter he loves and misses dearly. When he is told to kill a 15 yr old German girl. An assignment his handlers know he can not do. But the girl is killed by someone else in the CIA and as a result, Milo is seen as a washed up bad boy who needs to be retired and not just by the CIA.
Xin Zhu, an extremely obese agency head in Chinese Intelligence, orchestrates the destruction of the Department of Tourism having 33 of the CIA agents killed all over the world in one of the best plot twist in any spy novel. His reason, he believes that the CIA is responsible for the death of his son in Sudan. The head of Tourism, Alan Drummond is fired. The Tourist department is shut down and its New York offices are emptied. Xin is not done with his destruction. He has Milo shot by the grieving father of the killed teenage girl at the end of the last book and this is where An American Spy starts.
The first part of this book is devoted to Xin Zhu and his sneaking his wide load around China gathering information on what the CIA is planning to do to him in retaliation for his killing of the 33 agents. His cohorts in Chinese intelligence are not happy with Xin Zhu's actions but he is not punished. There is talk of a mole inside Chinese Intelligence but there is always a mole in every spy network, inside every spy novel . Xin Zhu sends a Chinese prostitute to the US to seduce and gather intelligences from a CIA spy. Xin Zhu and his fat ass takes up the first quarter of this book. But enough of his super size shenanigans. Where is Milo?
Patiently, I waited for Milo Weaver and his bad attitude to appear, ready to get back in action. It had been 8 weeks since he had been shot in the gut and he was recovered enough to look for work. Although Milo has to watch what he eats and drinks to not upset his injured digestive track, he has dinner parties at his apartment with fellow unemployed CIA boss Alan Drummond. Milo and his estranged wife are back together after she witness him being shot and he is looking forward to a regular job outside the CIA and living with his family. Yeah, try devoting the last 3/4 of a spy novel to this.
He is still friends with Alan Drummond,who is restless and planning to get back at Xin for the murder of 33 tourist and humiliation that followed. Alan is out of spies and a job but that does not stop him. He won't tell Milo what he is planning nor will he directly ask Milo to join his operation. Instead, Drummond goes to London and then disappears, shamelessly dragging a reluctant Milo into his plans, not to mention endangering Milo's family. The trouble is no one knows where Alan is or what he is up to. Milo is lead around Europe by another former Tourist, to the Middle East and Asia like a dog in a harness, playing a very passive part with no thoughts or plans of his own, except to save his family and get back to his life. Walk here, sit there, good dog Milo. Hell, he even has a dog name.
This book was a Milo lite spy novel. In fact Milo could have sat this one out because he was barely there. The writing style of this book is to report an incident, usually a murder scene, and then many chapters later the same incident is replayed by another perspective giving insight into why it happened and who was responsible. This worked well for one key scene in the first book but Steinhauer does this so much in this book that it is confusing and annoying. There are too many characters in this book. Some only enter only briefly in the beginning and then reappear so much later you forget who they are. There is none of the intricate plotting that comes together to make a good spy novel as Steinhauer has done in the past. And none of the character development that the first two books had that drew you into the book and if you had not read the previous books you would have never know the significance of some of the brief moments the characters from the past had in this novel.
I feel as if this is a bridge to another book and hopefully a better planned out spy novel. It was not junk food, the writing is good and intelligent but there are lots of loose threads in the plot that needed to be sewn together tighter. So I hope another book will follow. I will still read more from this author. I just expected so much more because the first two novels were the best written spy novels since John LeCarre's, George Smiley novels. Steinhauer put such a human aspect on the characters, not super human but human with flaws and mistakes, making the reader sympathetic to his plight.
With the first two books in this series, "The Tourist" and "Nearest Exit", Milo Weaver brilliantly takes center stage as a CIA agent who works for a secret sub-division known as the Department of Tourism. Milo is a different kind of spy, suicidal, smart and sometimes funny in a sad defeated kind of way. He is good at handling his assignments even if it is an an unorthodox fashion. He is given the minimal amount of information on his assignment which make them even more difficult. He travels all over the world, using several fictitious names. Even Milo Weaver is not his real name. He is fluent in German and Russian, stealing to raise money for his work, pissing off his boss and even killing when he has to. He gets his ass kicked and he is emotionally destroyed at times, and he is addicted to amphetamines. Milo has to stay alert to keep from being killed. But Milo has a soft side. He is married to a woman he has to lie to and as a result she leaves him. And he has a six year old daughter he loves and misses dearly. When he is told to kill a 15 yr old German girl. An assignment his handlers know he can not do. But the girl is killed by someone else in the CIA and as a result, Milo is seen as a washed up bad boy who needs to be retired and not just by the CIA.
Xin Zhu, an extremely obese agency head in Chinese Intelligence, orchestrates the destruction of the Department of Tourism having 33 of the CIA agents killed all over the world in one of the best plot twist in any spy novel. His reason, he believes that the CIA is responsible for the death of his son in Sudan. The head of Tourism, Alan Drummond is fired. The Tourist department is shut down and its New York offices are emptied. Xin is not done with his destruction. He has Milo shot by the grieving father of the killed teenage girl at the end of the last book and this is where An American Spy starts.
The first part of this book is devoted to Xin Zhu and his sneaking his wide load around China gathering information on what the CIA is planning to do to him in retaliation for his killing of the 33 agents. His cohorts in Chinese intelligence are not happy with Xin Zhu's actions but he is not punished. There is talk of a mole inside Chinese Intelligence but there is always a mole in every spy network, inside every spy novel . Xin Zhu sends a Chinese prostitute to the US to seduce and gather intelligences from a CIA spy. Xin Zhu and his fat ass takes up the first quarter of this book. But enough of his super size shenanigans. Where is Milo?
Patiently, I waited for Milo Weaver and his bad attitude to appear, ready to get back in action. It had been 8 weeks since he had been shot in the gut and he was recovered enough to look for work. Although Milo has to watch what he eats and drinks to not upset his injured digestive track, he has dinner parties at his apartment with fellow unemployed CIA boss Alan Drummond. Milo and his estranged wife are back together after she witness him being shot and he is looking forward to a regular job outside the CIA and living with his family. Yeah, try devoting the last 3/4 of a spy novel to this.
He is still friends with Alan Drummond,who is restless and planning to get back at Xin for the murder of 33 tourist and humiliation that followed. Alan is out of spies and a job but that does not stop him. He won't tell Milo what he is planning nor will he directly ask Milo to join his operation. Instead, Drummond goes to London and then disappears, shamelessly dragging a reluctant Milo into his plans, not to mention endangering Milo's family. The trouble is no one knows where Alan is or what he is up to. Milo is lead around Europe by another former Tourist, to the Middle East and Asia like a dog in a harness, playing a very passive part with no thoughts or plans of his own, except to save his family and get back to his life. Walk here, sit there, good dog Milo. Hell, he even has a dog name.
This book was a Milo lite spy novel. In fact Milo could have sat this one out because he was barely there. The writing style of this book is to report an incident, usually a murder scene, and then many chapters later the same incident is replayed by another perspective giving insight into why it happened and who was responsible. This worked well for one key scene in the first book but Steinhauer does this so much in this book that it is confusing and annoying. There are too many characters in this book. Some only enter only briefly in the beginning and then reappear so much later you forget who they are. There is none of the intricate plotting that comes together to make a good spy novel as Steinhauer has done in the past. And none of the character development that the first two books had that drew you into the book and if you had not read the previous books you would have never know the significance of some of the brief moments the characters from the past had in this novel.
I feel as if this is a bridge to another book and hopefully a better planned out spy novel. It was not junk food, the writing is good and intelligent but there are lots of loose threads in the plot that needed to be sewn together tighter. So I hope another book will follow. I will still read more from this author. I just expected so much more because the first two novels were the best written spy novels since John LeCarre's, George Smiley novels. Steinhauer put such a human aspect on the characters, not super human but human with flaws and mistakes, making the reader sympathetic to his plight.
August 20, 2019
Olen Steinhauer has taken a road less traveled, barely allowing his main character, the flawed, often depressed and disturbed spy/assassin, Milo Weaver, who risked everything for a master who didn’t care.
AN AMERICAN SPY is not a tingling spy thriller, it is an often convoluted tale with a varied cast that crosses continents, borders, agendas and really do not have that level of likeability or a cause that truly hit me as realistic or riveting.
Round and round we go, a murder here, a murder there, then we re-examine said murders, instead of moving on. Here’s hoping Milo recovers fully from his gut shot and perhaps he will play a bigger role in the series named for him.
I really, really wanted to like this one, I wanted to agree with others who say this is a great read, but, maybe Milo and I are never meant to besties.
I was invited to read and review the first three books in the Milo Weaver series by Minotaur Books! This is my honest and voluntary review.
Series: Milo Weaver - Book 3
Publisher: Minotaur Books; Reprint edition (March 13, 2012)
Publication Date: March 13, 2012
Genre: Espionage
Print Length: 397 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
For Reviews, Giveaways, Fabulous Book News, follow: http://tometender.blogspot.com
AN AMERICAN SPY is not a tingling spy thriller, it is an often convoluted tale with a varied cast that crosses continents, borders, agendas and really do not have that level of likeability or a cause that truly hit me as realistic or riveting.
Round and round we go, a murder here, a murder there, then we re-examine said murders, instead of moving on. Here’s hoping Milo recovers fully from his gut shot and perhaps he will play a bigger role in the series named for him.
I really, really wanted to like this one, I wanted to agree with others who say this is a great read, but, maybe Milo and I are never meant to besties.
I was invited to read and review the first three books in the Milo Weaver series by Minotaur Books! This is my honest and voluntary review.
Series: Milo Weaver - Book 3
Publisher: Minotaur Books; Reprint edition (March 13, 2012)
Publication Date: March 13, 2012
Genre: Espionage
Print Length: 397 pages
Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble
For Reviews, Giveaways, Fabulous Book News, follow: http://tometender.blogspot.com
March 22, 2022
Part 3 in the Milo Weaver series and it could be titled "Finding Milo"!
Well written, as usual,but not thrilling, I hope there will be an appropriate comeback of our favourite tourist in the next part.
3.5/5
Well written, as usual,but not thrilling, I hope there will be an appropriate comeback of our favourite tourist in the next part.
3.5/5
August 20, 2019
An American Spy is the third novel in the Milo Weaver espionage series. Milo thinks he's out of the spy business, but you're never really out. There's always someone or something dragging you back in. And, Milo learns the hard way about balancing work with family life. There are a lot of moving parts to this one and it's not quite as successful as the first two books, often leaving the reader with the sense that things are just spiraling out of control without the ethical quandaries that gave weight to the first two books. Still, however, looking forward to book four, which is coming out soon.
March 28, 2012
I tried very hard to like this book more than I did, but in the end it was just okay.
The problem was the multiple points of view of the various characters. I typically do not have issues with authors trying to tell a story from different perspectives, but this story got way too convoluted, and that's saying something, in a genre known for convolutions. The double meaning of the title didn't even thrill me.
I have no problem with non linear plots, but Steinhauer's attempt to show the motivations of the different characters just did not work for me.
Plus the best character in the last few books -- Milo Weaver-- barely appears in the text.
The problem was the multiple points of view of the various characters. I typically do not have issues with authors trying to tell a story from different perspectives, but this story got way too convoluted, and that's saying something, in a genre known for convolutions. The double meaning of the title didn't even thrill me.
I have no problem with non linear plots, but Steinhauer's attempt to show the motivations of the different characters just did not work for me.
Plus the best character in the last few books -- Milo Weaver-- barely appears in the text.
March 21, 2012
In Steinhauer’s third installment of CIA double-secret operative Milo Weaver, Milo is cutting his losses due to the violent vanquishing of the Tourist department, and trying to make a go of civilian life. His wife and daughter matter more than his ties to the CIA. His former boss, Alan Drummond, is inconsolable and guilt-stricken. The few Tourists (a liberal euphemism for “trained assassin”) that remain alive are scattered around the globe, and one in particular, Leticia Jones, has enigmatic resources and reasons for contacting colleagues. Xin Zhu, a Chinese bureaucrat responsible for the mind-numbing and vengeful execution of the thirty-three Tourists, is in the hot seat with the Chinese government, and Drummond’s new target. On this feverish note, the story opens.
Steinhauer refreshes followers of his first two books (I needed it—it’s been almost two year since THE NEAREST EXIT, and three since THE TOURIST), and he also capsulizes past events to bring new readers up-to-date. So it isn’t imperative to read the first two books in order to engage with this one. However, I don’t recommend starting with AN AMERICAN SPY. Story progression is critical, and the subtext could be lost in the abbreviated summary. Although some of his characters are prosaic, Milo is the most complex of all, and he deserves to be met at the beginning. Moreover, this is not the strongest of the three books (that would be THE TOURIST), and having the other two under your belt will deepen your appreciation of Steinhauer’s latest do-or-die thriller.
As usual, events take the reader all over the globe, with some juicy digressions into obscure countries adding to the overall enjoyment of background and atmosphere. The novel opens in 2008, after a short prologue in Germany, with the obese and intellectual Xin Zhu, and Milo doesn’t even make an appearance for 90 or so pages. The plot/story is set up with sufficient tension, and the different Chinese players are rendered with fine strokes and nuanced appeal. The well-timed segue to Milo in part two commences in his New York brownstone. At that point, the reader is firmly engaged and piqued.
As in the previous two novels, this is a provocative page-turner that keeps you guessing. The only problem here is that I wasn’t fooled; Steinhauer didn’t stay one step ahead of me. A half-step, maybe. Also, at about the two-thirds mark, the sense of immediacy is sacrificed by the author’s choice to telegraph events in arid sequence. It therefore unfolds as a dry chronicle, a ceremonial undertaking that squeezes the charm and extracts the heat from the story. It was the first time I yawned in a Steinhauer novel! Still, the reader has already been hooked, and you won’t go anywhere until you find out how this unravels.
Fortunately, the author puts the sizzle back in the stake, and the denouement, although not original or perplexing, does provide ample twists and entertainment. Spy aficionados will likely fill in the blanks with deadly aim before it is over. It’s Milo’s charm and morality in an amoral world that keeps the buzz on and the ringers off. The ending is pretty spicy, gearing us up for #4. I’ll bite!
Steinhauer refreshes followers of his first two books (I needed it—it’s been almost two year since THE NEAREST EXIT, and three since THE TOURIST), and he also capsulizes past events to bring new readers up-to-date. So it isn’t imperative to read the first two books in order to engage with this one. However, I don’t recommend starting with AN AMERICAN SPY. Story progression is critical, and the subtext could be lost in the abbreviated summary. Although some of his characters are prosaic, Milo is the most complex of all, and he deserves to be met at the beginning. Moreover, this is not the strongest of the three books (that would be THE TOURIST), and having the other two under your belt will deepen your appreciation of Steinhauer’s latest do-or-die thriller.
As usual, events take the reader all over the globe, with some juicy digressions into obscure countries adding to the overall enjoyment of background and atmosphere. The novel opens in 2008, after a short prologue in Germany, with the obese and intellectual Xin Zhu, and Milo doesn’t even make an appearance for 90 or so pages. The plot/story is set up with sufficient tension, and the different Chinese players are rendered with fine strokes and nuanced appeal. The well-timed segue to Milo in part two commences in his New York brownstone. At that point, the reader is firmly engaged and piqued.
As in the previous two novels, this is a provocative page-turner that keeps you guessing. The only problem here is that I wasn’t fooled; Steinhauer didn’t stay one step ahead of me. A half-step, maybe. Also, at about the two-thirds mark, the sense of immediacy is sacrificed by the author’s choice to telegraph events in arid sequence. It therefore unfolds as a dry chronicle, a ceremonial undertaking that squeezes the charm and extracts the heat from the story. It was the first time I yawned in a Steinhauer novel! Still, the reader has already been hooked, and you won’t go anywhere until you find out how this unravels.
Fortunately, the author puts the sizzle back in the stake, and the denouement, although not original or perplexing, does provide ample twists and entertainment. Spy aficionados will likely fill in the blanks with deadly aim before it is over. It’s Milo’s charm and morality in an amoral world that keeps the buzz on and the ringers off. The ending is pretty spicy, gearing us up for #4. I’ll bite!
November 7, 2019
If I didn't have this book on the reader after finishing the second book in the series,
The Nearest Exit,
just before starting this, I would have thought our intrepid spy Milo Weaver had met an untimely end. Obviously that was not the case, because this thrilling and exciting story by Olen Steinhauer has continued with this very book,
An American Spy.
During the course of this series, I have seen Milo rise, fall and rise again, only to fall yet again. A former CIA agent, Milo is now employed with the ultra secret the Department of Tourism. Milo is not your typical hero. He is flawed, can be self-destructive and self-centered. But, he does appreciate justice and works feverishly hard at catching the bad guys. And that is what it is all about in this series.
He is a man well-traveled, often emotionally damaged, with fractured relationships, and has the ability to lose his scruples if things reach a certain point. Milo is called The Tourist, and he is not the only one. They are an elite team and pretty much have their own value system.
The story never stopped when it came to action. I powered through it and really enjoyed reading something so exciting, although this is a rather new turn for me. I am looking forward to the next (maybe last?) book in the series, The Last Tourist, coming in 2020.
Many thanks to Minotaur Books and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
During the course of this series, I have seen Milo rise, fall and rise again, only to fall yet again. A former CIA agent, Milo is now employed with the ultra secret the Department of Tourism. Milo is not your typical hero. He is flawed, can be self-destructive and self-centered. But, he does appreciate justice and works feverishly hard at catching the bad guys. And that is what it is all about in this series.
He is a man well-traveled, often emotionally damaged, with fractured relationships, and has the ability to lose his scruples if things reach a certain point. Milo is called The Tourist, and he is not the only one. They are an elite team and pretty much have their own value system.
The story never stopped when it came to action. I powered through it and really enjoyed reading something so exciting, although this is a rather new turn for me. I am looking forward to the next (maybe last?) book in the series, The Last Tourist, coming in 2020.
Many thanks to Minotaur Books and to NetGalley for this ARC for review. This is my honest opinion.
January 19, 2019
I thought this series was pretty entertaining, but a bit confusing sometimes, mostly due to shifting point of view so the time would shift unexpectedly. That wasn't too bad, but the ending... I literally felt like I fell off a cliff or something when the book just ended with no warning, it seemed. I guess we're either supposed to guess what happens afterward, or there will be another book. I'm hoping for more.
March 22, 2012
. . . Ten pages into An American Spy and I was dazed and confused. I pondered how I would ever be able to comment on this book and then it hit me: Olen Steinhauer was leading me through a muddled maze that was carefully constructed to confound me at every corner. The only way I could personally travel through this spy vs. spy story was to passively surrender myself to the action.
I just let it wash over me;
I didn't try to figure it out (it was literally driving the protagonists crazy trying to piece out the puzzle so why would I want to do that to myself?);
I started enjoying the excruciating complexity of the spycraft.
Somewhere I'd read a comment comparing this author to John Le Carre (probably a publisher's blurb) and it is an apt comparison. There is a Machiavellian political environment. The good guys do evil things and the bad guys have some heart. I never figured out if the hero was brilliant or befuddled, but I settled on not worrying about it because I'd succumbed to being befuddled myself and totally enjoyed it.
I was happy to be introduced to this author through a First Reads advance reader's copy of the book and now I am busy mentally casting the characters for the PBS mini-series it deserves to become.
I just let it wash over me;
I didn't try to figure it out (it was literally driving the protagonists crazy trying to piece out the puzzle so why would I want to do that to myself?);
I started enjoying the excruciating complexity of the spycraft.
Somewhere I'd read a comment comparing this author to John Le Carre (probably a publisher's blurb) and it is an apt comparison. There is a Machiavellian political environment. The good guys do evil things and the bad guys have some heart. I never figured out if the hero was brilliant or befuddled, but I settled on not worrying about it because I'd succumbed to being befuddled myself and totally enjoyed it.
I was happy to be introduced to this author through a First Reads advance reader's copy of the book and now I am busy mentally casting the characters for the PBS mini-series it deserves to become.
April 25, 2012
The weakest of the Milo Weaver/Tourist trilogy. I think Steinhauer did himself a big disservice by focusing too much on China. I think I understand WHY he would feel compelled to write about Chinese espionage, but it just didn't have the authenticity of his first two novels in this trilogy. It wasn't bad, it just wasn't fantastic either. There was a section in the middle where I think even the author got bored. Not a good sign.
March 21, 2012
The third book in the "Tourist" series and by far the weakest. Also had a most unsatisfactory ending and when i finished it i could not help but think that the only reason this book was written was to set up the coming sequels.....we deserve better from Steinhauer as he is a much better writer than this. Also not much in this book for fans of Milo.
January 4, 2021
3.5 rounded down. Interesting perspective of the Chinese side. However, I had a hard time keeping track of all the Chinese officials and their power grabs. The amount of times people flip flopped allegiances was completely unrealistic. And it appears everybody lost track of why they were in the “game” to begin with. Library has book 4, so I shall read it."
August 11, 2023
Absoluter Dilettantismus, dabei begann der Roman so verheißungsvoll mit dem Sprung ins gegnerische Lager. Auch später gibt es ein paar vereinzelte Lichtblicke, trotzdem der wohl schlechteste Agentenroman meiner Lesekarriere. Selbst die Danksagung in Le Carreś schrecklich gut gemeinten Russlandhaus erweist sich als tödliche Vergleichsgröße für diese Stümperei.
Nichts wird erklärt, geschweige denn, spannend synchronisiert. Statt dessen jedes mal die Uhr zurück gedreht, als wäre man noch im literarischen Postkutschenzeitalter und nicht im 21. Jahrhundert.
Komplett verschwendete Lese- und Lebenszeit.
Nichts wird erklärt, geschweige denn, spannend synchronisiert. Statt dessen jedes mal die Uhr zurück gedreht, als wäre man noch im literarischen Postkutschenzeitalter und nicht im 21. Jahrhundert.
Komplett verschwendete Lese- und Lebenszeit.
November 8, 2019
Originally published back in 2012, this has been given a new lease of life by the current political tensions between China and America. It’s a complex chess game between rival black ops agencies, a deadly competition which has gone far beyond data gathering and counter espionage.
Unusually, the story starts with the Chinese plotline which I found fascinating. Maverick Xin Zhu has already wiped out an entire American team but his position is far from secure – and soon we’re saturated in clever tradecraft and subtle machinations. The plot is revealed from different perspectives with overlapping timelines which always kept the truth obscured but somehow never got entirely tangled.
Only once I was two-thirds of the way through did I recall that I’ve read a previous Milo Weaver espionage adventure; the first in the series, probably a decade ago. Despite that gap, and missing out the middle episode entirely, I had no problem following the action - although I maybe wasn’t as involved with the American characters as I might’ve been if I’d read the other books recently.
So the scenario, tradecraft and plotting were all first-class, and I was heavily invested in several of the Chinese characters and the overall mystery. Why, then, doesn't this get the full five stars?
Because it failed to finish, that’s why. OK, author Olen Steinhauer delivered some of the answers – but then left a huge amount hanging in mid-air. So much was left unresolved at the end of this book that it spoiled the whole experience. And it’s put me off reading the next one…
So if you read this as part of the series, then it’s brilliant. But as a standalone? It’s OK.
7/10
There's more info about this book - and many other crime / thrillers - over at http://www.murdermayhemandmore.net
Unusually, the story starts with the Chinese plotline which I found fascinating. Maverick Xin Zhu has already wiped out an entire American team but his position is far from secure – and soon we’re saturated in clever tradecraft and subtle machinations. The plot is revealed from different perspectives with overlapping timelines which always kept the truth obscured but somehow never got entirely tangled.
Only once I was two-thirds of the way through did I recall that I’ve read a previous Milo Weaver espionage adventure; the first in the series, probably a decade ago. Despite that gap, and missing out the middle episode entirely, I had no problem following the action - although I maybe wasn’t as involved with the American characters as I might’ve been if I’d read the other books recently.
So the scenario, tradecraft and plotting were all first-class, and I was heavily invested in several of the Chinese characters and the overall mystery. Why, then, doesn't this get the full five stars?
Because it failed to finish, that’s why. OK, author Olen Steinhauer delivered some of the answers – but then left a huge amount hanging in mid-air. So much was left unresolved at the end of this book that it spoiled the whole experience. And it’s put me off reading the next one…
So if you read this as part of the series, then it’s brilliant. But as a standalone? It’s OK.
7/10
There's more info about this book - and many other crime / thrillers - over at http://www.murdermayhemandmore.net
March 5, 2012
Steinhauer continues to explore both the mechanics of spy craft and the moral tension inherent in the trade using Milo Weaver as his lens. With this third volume in the series, Weaver is no longer a Tourist but can't escape the gravity of its destruction.
What from so many angles seems like violence and betrayal fueled by revenge turns out to be each side attempting to turn events to their advantage. Steinhauer plays the story out giving the reader the perspective of a number of characters from Weaver to his former boss Alan Drummond to Chinese spymaster Xin Zhu. But just when you think you are starting to put the pieces together he shuffles the deck and you have re-evaluate your assumptions. You find yourself constantly trying to understand the strategy and motivations of each side while guessing their next steps - in other words, thinking like a spy.
What also becomes clear is how the nature of the trade undermines trust and casts doubt on everything.
I think PW hits the nail on the head:
"Steinhauer is particularly good at articulating contemporary spy craft—the mechanics of surveillance and intelligence in the digital age and the depth of paranoia endemic to the trade. In addition, his ability to create characters with genuine emotions and conflicts, coupled with an insightful and often poetic writing style, set him apart in the world of espionage fiction. "
What from so many angles seems like violence and betrayal fueled by revenge turns out to be each side attempting to turn events to their advantage. Steinhauer plays the story out giving the reader the perspective of a number of characters from Weaver to his former boss Alan Drummond to Chinese spymaster Xin Zhu. But just when you think you are starting to put the pieces together he shuffles the deck and you have re-evaluate your assumptions. You find yourself constantly trying to understand the strategy and motivations of each side while guessing their next steps - in other words, thinking like a spy.
What also becomes clear is how the nature of the trade undermines trust and casts doubt on everything.
I think PW hits the nail on the head:
"Steinhauer is particularly good at articulating contemporary spy craft—the mechanics of surveillance and intelligence in the digital age and the depth of paranoia endemic to the trade. In addition, his ability to create characters with genuine emotions and conflicts, coupled with an insightful and often poetic writing style, set him apart in the world of espionage fiction. "
July 9, 2016
Rarely do I get an opportunity to read a series in order and at the same time, but was able to check out from the library all three books of Olen Steinhauer' Tourist series at the same time. I enjoyed both The Tourist and The Nearest Exit and was looking forward to An American Spy with anticipation. But, compared to the first two books in this series, "An American Spy" was disappointing. Perhaps it was because I had just gotten home from a visit to the hospital and surgery. The narcotic painkillers made me quite wasted and spaced out -- way more than I had ever experienced. I read the first half of the "An American Spy" with a very fuzzy and muddled mind. So I am going to give Olen Steinhauer some credit and suggest I was reading a complex and convoluted book with a very muddled mind.
December 25, 2013
I like this genre and have enjoyed other books by this author. However, it was difficult to connect with or follow the characters in An American Spy.
The writing is professional and the plot is well-conceived.
The writing is professional and the plot is well-conceived.
September 11, 2012
Everybody lies. So popular culture would have us believe and so it is the underlying premise in Steinhauer's fascinating spy thriller. There are factions within the CIA; then there's Homeland Security, the FBI, the NSA, the Germans, the Chinese, even the United Nations (Yevgeny's "Library") with their respective intelligence agencies. Naturally they not only lie to each other, they actively mislead each other. In Steinhauer's world family members have trouble telling each other the truth, even--especially--husbands and wives. Nobody is above deception.
Sometimes this world view leads to brilliant writing: "The Company spends as much time anticipating disaster as it does collecting intelligence....the time Xin Zhu spent trying to be unheard could have added up to an entire life... Shen Anling kept the dialectic in motion throwing his boss' words back at him....Milo's damaged intestine was speaking to him in the coagulated voice of despair." Often it leads to writing or actions that tries to emulate the unconvincing "spycraft" Steinhauer has imagined to be necessary: a trip from New York to London goes via Seattle, a drive to Vancouver, then Tokyo, Mumbai, Amman and finally London with naturally a change of name for each leg of the way.
There are moments of blinding clarity as when a faction of the Chinese intelligence service claims that an American spy is egging on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, suggesting that America was complicit in Islamist/jihadist plots, and is rebuked by a member of its supervisory committee: "There is something highly insane about that." Similar arguments are made and defended with the argument that the Chinese had to deal not with the U.S. but with the CIA and its history of "mad behavior."
Overall, it is a good yarn, well spun. There are even moments of social conscience (?) as when Xin Zhu who has managed to terminate 33 members of the CIA's "Tourist Agency"--almost all of them--finds conveniently that the weight of such bad karma miniscule compared with the thousands killed in the Sichuan earthquake. Even more pointedly, he claims that he has tried for years and failed to comprehend how/why the number of those killed during the Great Leap Forward came to fifteen million.
None of this can be a spoiler for the reader, except the warning to pay close attention to WHEN things are said to take place. For the author uses flash-backs and flash-forwards to make the story harder to follow. Perhaps this is a new literary technique to enhance the "thrill" of this genre but this old-fashioned reviewer considers it to be cheating and takes two stars off for that stunt.
Sometimes this world view leads to brilliant writing: "The Company spends as much time anticipating disaster as it does collecting intelligence....the time Xin Zhu spent trying to be unheard could have added up to an entire life... Shen Anling kept the dialectic in motion throwing his boss' words back at him....Milo's damaged intestine was speaking to him in the coagulated voice of despair." Often it leads to writing or actions that tries to emulate the unconvincing "spycraft" Steinhauer has imagined to be necessary: a trip from New York to London goes via Seattle, a drive to Vancouver, then Tokyo, Mumbai, Amman and finally London with naturally a change of name for each leg of the way.
There are moments of blinding clarity as when a faction of the Chinese intelligence service claims that an American spy is egging on the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, suggesting that America was complicit in Islamist/jihadist plots, and is rebuked by a member of its supervisory committee: "There is something highly insane about that." Similar arguments are made and defended with the argument that the Chinese had to deal not with the U.S. but with the CIA and its history of "mad behavior."
Overall, it is a good yarn, well spun. There are even moments of social conscience (?) as when Xin Zhu who has managed to terminate 33 members of the CIA's "Tourist Agency"--almost all of them--finds conveniently that the weight of such bad karma miniscule compared with the thousands killed in the Sichuan earthquake. Even more pointedly, he claims that he has tried for years and failed to comprehend how/why the number of those killed during the Great Leap Forward came to fifteen million.
None of this can be a spoiler for the reader, except the warning to pay close attention to WHEN things are said to take place. For the author uses flash-backs and flash-forwards to make the story harder to follow. Perhaps this is a new literary technique to enhance the "thrill" of this genre but this old-fashioned reviewer considers it to be cheating and takes two stars off for that stunt.
November 11, 2012
I don't know why I waited so long to read this since I loved the first two books but I was not disappointed. Lots of twists and turn many of which I did not anticipate. Milo Weaver is one of the few agents left alive after the clever master criminal Xin Zhu exterminates his secret group by having the agents kill each other. His former boss Alan Drummond wants revenge and disappears in London while using one of Milo's aliases. It only gets more complicated with many colorful characters. The novel starts with 90 pages within China before Milo even appears. Risky but makes the novel's doings much clearer. All along this has been presented as a trilogy. The twisty ending makes another book very possible. How exciting..
January 20, 2015
Great ending (?) to the Milo Weaver series, nicely wrapping up all of the many loose ends of all three books, many, MANY loose ends. If you are going to read this series, I highly recommend reading all three back-to-back with no break between them. The storyline is tightly wound and details are lost or forgotten over longer spans of time.
As many reviewers have already pointed, much of this final volume is devoted to characters other than Mr Weaver, but the author is an excellent writer and doesn't fail in the least to keep the reader turning the page well into the night.
I'm looking forward to more in series, and I hope Olen Steinhauer continues to bring us the adventures of Milo Weaver and the Tourists.
As many reviewers have already pointed, much of this final volume is devoted to characters other than Mr Weaver, but the author is an excellent writer and doesn't fail in the least to keep the reader turning the page well into the night.
I'm looking forward to more in series, and I hope Olen Steinhauer continues to bring us the adventures of Milo Weaver and the Tourists.
October 15, 2019
This is the Third book in a series. The first two were a disappointment and I was hoping that this one would be an improvement, but it is not to be and so I slogged my way through book three. This is a spy novel that is somewhat predictable with a lot of cliches located throughout the book. While the book is somewhat interesting it is one that the reader can easily walk away from for a while and then circle back to - it is not a page turner. I found it interesting that is was a New York Times bestseller meaning that the book must of either resonated with a number of readers or had a very captivating public relations push.
I received a free Kindle ARC courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would provide an honest review and post it on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook page.
I received a free Kindle ARC courtesy of Net Galley and the publisher. It was with the understanding that I would provide an honest review and post it on Net Galley, Goodreads, Amazon and my review blog. I also posted it to my Facebook page.
November 5, 2020
I was very surprised by this book. Picked it up on a whim and rushed through it in a couple of days (a rare feat for a slow reader like me). Also, I didn't know this was Book 3 of a series but you don't need to read the previous 2...although it would help. Jumping straight into Book 3, I was a bit confused when certain events were brought up from out of nowhere by the characters but all due credit to the author that even without prior knowledge of these events, An American Spy is still a very enjoyable spy thriller.
October 23, 2019
This was my first Steinhauer novel, and I have to admit that I was just not able to keep up. The plot was convoluted, the characters interconnected in non-obvious ways, and as the author sent us around (and around, and around) the world, I ended up confused and dizzy. I have enough “current events anxiety” without adding imagined Chinese plots to end the world.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
December 6, 2019
I had a hard time getting into this book. It was slower moving than the others, and there seemed to be a lot more secondary characters moving in and out of the story which made it difficult for me to follow at times. The end of the book in particular felt fragmented, although it was definitely intentional. That's just not my cup of tea in a novel.
September 12, 2019
I didn't like this book as much as the first two. It is very complicated and convoluted. It moves between many different perspectives of people so it is hard to follow what's happening and to who. I didn't like the ending as it was open-ended and didn't finish anything. #An American Spy #NetGalley
November 22, 2019
It was not the best one in the series but it fills in some knowledge about Milo. I still enjoy Steinhauers writing but I felt the story lacking something. I have to thank #MinotaurBooks and StMartinsPress and #Netgalley for making this available to me and I will continue with the adventures of Milo Weaver By Olen Steinhauer.
May 7, 2023
This one just wasn’t as enjoyable as the first two Milo Weaver books I read earlier in the year. For starters, Milo is nowhere to be found for almost a hundred pages. We’re introduced, in great detail, to a far Chinese man named Xin Zhu, who has assassinated 33 Tourists (CIA agents) around the world. Milo is, of course, an exception. While I was really into this book at certain points, at other times I had trouble following what was going on, and for an espionage book to do that to a constant reader is just unfair.
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