The Tourist

Writer Olen Steinhauer has some fun with his spy terminology. A “tourist” is a black ops CIA agent who travels the world on a tourist visa. “Tourists” work directly for a “tour guide” at the “department of tourism.” Clandestine operations are reported to Langley in “tour guides.”

The day before 9/11, a CIA embassy officer goes missing while trying to make an expensive purchase of some valuable intelligence information. The Department of Tourism, fearing the worst, sends a “tourist” to locate the missing CIA embassy operative.

The tourist’s name is Milo Weaver. Undercover for years, he is tired, burned out, and an alcoholic. He is also suicidal. He wants out of the field. It holds no meaning for him anymore. Maybe it never did. Despite his plea, he goes on the mission to Slovenia.

Fast-forward six years. Milo is now married. He has a stepdaughter and a brownstone outside of New York City. He has a desk job inside of the Department of Tourism writing those “tour guides” for Langley. Even after 9/11, the intelligence work holds no greater purpose for Milo, but at least he thinks more about living than of dying.

But his last two undercover operations some six years ago come back to haunt him. Milo goes back to Europe in search of the truth. But in the spy world, where the truth is an illusion, digging for the truth puts Milo’s life, and that of his family, in jeopardy.

The Tourist is a complex and layered international spy thriller. There are many sides to each of the characters. Some of the sides are evil, and some of them are sublime. Ultimately, you are left to decide who is good, and who is evil; and which “stories” are real, and which ones are spin. Even Milo Weaver, a lifer and “tourist” at the CIA, is not always what he seems to be.

Review by Dean Redfern

(No Ratings Yet)

 Loading ...