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The Sleeper List: A Spy Novel
The Sleeper List takes a page from the hit TV series The Americans, except that the two principal sleeper agents want nothing to do with Mother Russia after the Berlin Wall comes down and makes their Cold War mission seem irrelevant. Their handlers have different post-war plans for the a lawyer using a phony cover as the general counsel of a supercomputer company with lots of high tech secrets at his disposal, and an assassin who is willing to kill people who deserve it, but not anyone else. As both seek freedom on their terms, their bosses are intent on betraying, or even killing them, if they don’t get what they want.
- GenresFiction
490 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 6, 2022
4 people are currently reading
539 people want to read
About the author
Patrick Oster
11 books46 followersPatrick Oster is the author of seven well-reviewed award-winning thrillers and murder mysteries:
“The Commuter,” “The German Club,” "The Hacker Chronicles" and "The Amazon Detective Agency." His fifth novel, a murder mystery, called "The Obituary Writer," came out out in 2020. His sixth, "The Sleeper List," a spy novel came out in April of 2022. Readers Favorite gave it a gold medal as the best spy novel of 2022. "The Man Who Fell in Love With His Wife" was published in August of 2024 to numerous positive reviews.
An award-winning journalist, he has covered the White House, the
State Department and the CIA. He has been a foreign correspondent
in Latin America and Europe, covering civil wars, the fall of the
Berlin Wall, NATO and the creation of the European Union.
A lawyer, he was managing editor for legal news for Bloomberg
News for more than a decade and editor-in-chief of the National
Law Journal before that. He is also the author of a non-fiction
book, “The Mexicans: A Personal Portrait of a People,” a Book-of-the-
Month-Club selection. More details about him can be found at
www.patrickoster.com. He can be followed on Twitter @patrickoster
or Facebook. patrickoster.novelist
“The Commuter,” “The German Club,” "The Hacker Chronicles" and "The Amazon Detective Agency." His fifth novel, a murder mystery, called "The Obituary Writer," came out out in 2020. His sixth, "The Sleeper List," a spy novel came out in April of 2022. Readers Favorite gave it a gold medal as the best spy novel of 2022. "The Man Who Fell in Love With His Wife" was published in August of 2024 to numerous positive reviews.
An award-winning journalist, he has covered the White House, the
State Department and the CIA. He has been a foreign correspondent
in Latin America and Europe, covering civil wars, the fall of the
Berlin Wall, NATO and the creation of the European Union.
A lawyer, he was managing editor for legal news for Bloomberg
News for more than a decade and editor-in-chief of the National
Law Journal before that. He is also the author of a non-fiction
book, “The Mexicans: A Personal Portrait of a People,” a Book-of-the-
Month-Club selection. More details about him can be found at
www.patrickoster.com. He can be followed on Twitter @patrickoster
or Facebook. patrickoster.novelist
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 23, 2025
I don't think there was anything I enjoyed about this book. It felt like I was reading some Isekai slop where all the characters are one dimensional and serve a single purpose and then are thrown away for the next shiny object. This is the first book I have seen with obvious spelling, grammar, and formatting errors. I didn't even think it would be possible as the excel doc you wrote this in would let you know what you're doing wrong. I'm going to break my review down again to really highlight how this book failed in every way.
Plot: Spy novels are only as good as the information that is given to the reader. Unfortunately all the information is immediately given in the form of 3rd-person omnipotence, bouncing around from character to character. It's also painfully obviously that none of the information given is ever truly used to a full extent. Hardly anything changes, or is even learned from the start of the book to the end. We have cycles of: Vi is cheating -> they divorce. Will is sick -> he dies. Michael gets with Gabi -> she leaves. Kirov needs to get Green back -> he does. There is no in-between, there is hardly any struggle for these actions that should be fleshed out in the very least. You're telling me that Koba, one of the most powerful men in the world has a single guard protecting the mom he keeps on base? A single barbed fence protecting her? And he will just go, unarmed to get his mom back with no show of dialogue? And Kirov doesn't kill him for some half-baked excuse? Or Winter trusting Michael with setting up contacts with Vincent and the Russians even though you don't trust him? Why would Kirov ever let Trick live instead of blasting him one as soon as he found out he's a spy? Why did Trick go with Kirov when he provided nothing of value in Belgium? There is such little depth in this book. Will's death is literally only mentioned when Michael talks about not being tied to Winter, and divorcing his wife even less. None of these character altering events are even brought up in Trick's head. He may be a spy, is he was raised to be a spy why would he care about any of them? Or Guinness? Why would the FBI send in an operative to live with Trick when they can get attached, and Winter already regularly checks up with him? Why is everything so easy for everyone in the book to accomplish? Oh wait, I remember the answer now: this book is simply mindless sex and violence trying to act like a spy movie.
Characters: Every characters acts the same, only differentiated by their nationality, if that even. I would keep having to re-read all the single lines of dialogue because each character would talk exactly the same. Even the women at times, who let me just save you the hope now, only exist to have sex with someone. Every other characters is either being a quiet man with little emotions or a liability to be exploited. The character with any amount of depth is Francesca where everything is implied in-between the numerous instances of sex. I mean I get it's a spy movie, but none of the sex serves any purpose other than keeping you "engaged".
Ending: Might as well not even ended. I mean we've already gone through 3 different, near unrelated bad guys. Nothing seems accomplished even because we keep going through the cycle of imaginary problem into straightforward solution. Kirov's death had more closure than the ending of the book. Let's take a tally of how everything was tied up: the love interest introduced on page 500 ends up with Trick. The bad guy introduced on pages 499 is there. Side character introduced on page 300 (who honestly doesn't have a vendetta against Trick) is still out there. Trick doesn't have a job, or anything he really cares about other than sex? The FBI have done jack diddly the whole book. The Russians have accomplished jack diddly throughout the book. Green doesn't get mentioned ever again since she was just a plot device anyways. Absolutely no growth, twists, comebacks or anything interesting. This book was just slop. Save yourself some time. Go outside and be happy.
Plot: Spy novels are only as good as the information that is given to the reader. Unfortunately all the information is immediately given in the form of 3rd-person omnipotence, bouncing around from character to character. It's also painfully obviously that none of the information given is ever truly used to a full extent. Hardly anything changes, or is even learned from the start of the book to the end. We have cycles of: Vi is cheating -> they divorce. Will is sick -> he dies. Michael gets with Gabi -> she leaves. Kirov needs to get Green back -> he does. There is no in-between, there is hardly any struggle for these actions that should be fleshed out in the very least. You're telling me that Koba, one of the most powerful men in the world has a single guard protecting the mom he keeps on base? A single barbed fence protecting her? And he will just go, unarmed to get his mom back with no show of dialogue? And Kirov doesn't kill him for some half-baked excuse? Or Winter trusting Michael with setting up contacts with Vincent and the Russians even though you don't trust him? Why would Kirov ever let Trick live instead of blasting him one as soon as he found out he's a spy? Why did Trick go with Kirov when he provided nothing of value in Belgium? There is such little depth in this book. Will's death is literally only mentioned when Michael talks about not being tied to Winter, and divorcing his wife even less. None of these character altering events are even brought up in Trick's head. He may be a spy, is he was raised to be a spy why would he care about any of them? Or Guinness? Why would the FBI send in an operative to live with Trick when they can get attached, and Winter already regularly checks up with him? Why is everything so easy for everyone in the book to accomplish? Oh wait, I remember the answer now: this book is simply mindless sex and violence trying to act like a spy movie.
Characters: Every characters acts the same, only differentiated by their nationality, if that even. I would keep having to re-read all the single lines of dialogue because each character would talk exactly the same. Even the women at times, who let me just save you the hope now, only exist to have sex with someone. Every other characters is either being a quiet man with little emotions or a liability to be exploited. The character with any amount of depth is Francesca where everything is implied in-between the numerous instances of sex. I mean I get it's a spy movie, but none of the sex serves any purpose other than keeping you "engaged".
Ending: Might as well not even ended. I mean we've already gone through 3 different, near unrelated bad guys. Nothing seems accomplished even because we keep going through the cycle of imaginary problem into straightforward solution. Kirov's death had more closure than the ending of the book. Let's take a tally of how everything was tied up: the love interest introduced on page 500 ends up with Trick. The bad guy introduced on pages 499 is there. Side character introduced on page 300 (who honestly doesn't have a vendetta against Trick) is still out there. Trick doesn't have a job, or anything he really cares about other than sex? The FBI have done jack diddly the whole book. The Russians have accomplished jack diddly throughout the book. Green doesn't get mentioned ever again since she was just a plot device anyways. Absolutely no growth, twists, comebacks or anything interesting. This book was just slop. Save yourself some time. Go outside and be happy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 5, 2023
this is a fun book to read. I dont know why but this writers books are just fun and interesting. Nothing especially deep. Just good entertainment with some real life history and facts thrown in to keep it real
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews