The reluctant tourist

In espionage thrillers, agents may have lovers but rarely spouses and children they love and long to spend more time with. But in Olen Steinhauer's terrific The Tourist (2009), Milo Weaver just wants to take his family to Disney World. He wants to be a tourist, and not a "tourist," CIA lingo for agents who wander the world doing the Company's bidding. Under the name Charles Alexander, Weaver used to be a Company tourist. Now he has a desk job and prefers to keep it that way.

But then an international assassin chooses Weaver as his audience for his dying words, which suggest that the assassin was actually working for someone in the CIA and that Weaver had better discover who that is.

Soon Weaver, forced to abandon his family in Florida, must travel to Paris and elsewhere, trying to find the answers upon which his life may depend. Once again he finds himself a tourist, this time working on his own.

Espionage novels are traditionally filled with complexity, sudden turns, sudden deaths and betrayals. The Tourist has all that, and more.