With his Tourist Trilogy of espionage novels Olen Steinhauer has elevated the spy genre to levels that have been rarely seen since the demise of the Soviet Union. When the Iron Curtain came down it also shut the door temporarily on the spy vs. spy intrigues of the Cold War.
Fortunately for fans of this genre time passes. Olen Steinhauer has studied well. In his latest, "An American Spy," we find that the top-secret American spy cell within the CIA, the so-called Department of Tourism, has been virtually obliterated through the machinations of a Chinese spy master.
One of the few surviving agents is our reluctant spy Milo Weaver. In this book readers are plunged into the wilderness of mirrors as Milo and his family vanish for 100 pages into a black hole. Steinhauer concocts a lethal brew of intrigue here while we observe what takes place as the Chinese try to figure out what has become of Milo, his former boss, and their families. Things are never what they seem in these books.
Is this the end for Milo and this fabulous series? Or will there be more? In this interview and in this book Steinhauer offers his fans a slight glimmer of hope. Milo could be back.
