The Cairo Affair

By: Olen Steinhauer

Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini

Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's summary

Sophie Kohl is living her worst nightmare. Minutes after she confesses to her husband, a mid-level diplomat at the American embassy in Hungary, that she had an affair while they were in Cairo, he is shot in the head and killed.

Stan Bertolli, a Cairo-based CIA agent, has fielded his share of midnight calls. But his heart skips a beat when he hears the voice of the only woman he ever truly loved, calling to ask why her husband has been assassinated.

Omar Halawi has worked in Egyptian intelligence for years, and he knows how to play the game. Foreign agents pass him occasional information, he returns the favor, and everyone's happy. But the murder of a diplomat in Hungary has ripples all the way to Cairo, and Omar must follow the fall-out wherever it leads.

American analyst Jibril Aziz knows more about Stumbler, a covert operation rejected by the CIA, than anyone. So when it appears someone else has obtained a copy of the blueprints, Jibril alone knows the danger it represents.

As these players converge in Cairo in The Cairo Affair, Olen Steinhauer's masterful manipulations slowly unveil a portrait of a marriage, a jigsaw puzzle of loyalty and betrayal, against a dangerous world of political games where allegiances are never clear and outcomes are never guaranteed.

©2014 Third State, Inc. (P)2013 Macmillan Audio

The Cairo Affair - a fragmented plot

The Cairo Affair presents itself as a thriller, a murder mystery. The wife of a diplomat sets out to find the man behind the man who killed her husband. Or is it the woman behind the man who...well, you know.

Olen Steinhauer writes beautifully. He evokes visions of Egypt and other lands that are intriguing and worth exploring. His characters, especially the veteran diplomats and spies, are individual and multifaceted. He reveals their strategies and their frailties. Some characters are deep and authentic while others are cold. With the exception of one, the women were not as well written as the men.

Based on my limited knowledge of regional accents, Edoardo Ballerini's narration is on point. He has a wide range and given the number of characters in this book, did a masterful job of recreating their voices.

The story line was a problem. It was if the book were written on glass tablets, shattered, and then pasted together by someone who didn't know the plot. The characters, the timelines, the decades and the locations jump around and cannot find their way back to center. It becomes tedious. I didn't feel, as some other reviewers stated, there were too many characters. My criticism is that the disjointed story lines ruined the pacing.

The Cairo Affair didn't make it to my top ten list. Nevertheless, because of his writing style, I will try another book by Olen Steinhauer.

Excellently plotted

After reading a number of mediocre books where the plot went nowhere, "The Cairo Affair" was a breath of fresh air. The plot unveils in layers, each chapter revealing a new shade of meaning to what you knew before. The characters find out what is happening right along with you. Each one is holding his or her own piece of the puzzle...and in the end it all comes together seamlessly. It's hard to say much without spoilers, so I will simply recommend this for those of you who like spy thrillers and intrigue that is ultimately human.

Solid Espionage Thriller

As others have noted, Olen Steinhauer is the new John leCarre. Though maybe not at the same level as the Tourist series, this is a very solid book that should appeal to fans of that series and to the genre.

Stylish, interesting & worthwhile espionage tale

"The Cairo Affair" is an extremely well-written, intricately put together novel, with fascinating glimpses of the same events viewed from a variety of perspectives. Straightforward description of some of the key plot elements can be found in other reviews and in Audible's brief introduction to the book.

I can see why some readers compare Olen Steinhauer to John le Carré. Steinhauer is one of the few espionage writers whose style and artful method of presentation come up to the high standards of the older writer. Like le Carré's, Steinhauer's characters are not ciphers, but interesting and diverse personalities, some of whom have thought hard about the morality of their actions in a twilight world. Also, some of the characters can surprise us, for example, a cynical old agent who is inspired by a young, inexperienced idealist.

The story is very well told (and the narrator fine), but there is a mystery at the heart of the action. One of the lead characters makes inexplicable, apparently unmotivated choices that have calamitous effects on those around the character, including on some who are (imperfectly) loved by this lead character. It strikes me this is a blemish on an otherwise fine novel, for the foolish, irrational decision-making occurs not once or twice but three times over the course of the novel. The shocking choices are made in contradiction to the well-being and personality of the character in question. The contradiction is a bit much to make the action wholly convincing, but I must concede that it drives the action of the novel in a way that is appropriately mysterious and moving.

This is only a minor point, but the author does not always play fair with the reader. As is the case in many interesting novels, the action is carried forward through the consciousness of several of the characters. Facts that are very well known to some of them are not revealed to the reader until quite late in the novel, though of course these facts would have been known to the character through whose consciousness we are viewing some of the crucial action. Of course, this deception keeps up the level of suspense. But it seems to me strange that a character who possesses a key piece of knowledge that would explain some crucial bit of business in the plot should withhold that information from the reader when that character's consciousness is used to transmit a description of that very bit of business.

Still, this is a first-rate novel and very enjoyable read.

Who's on Third? Or Second or First? Or at Home?

1. This is not a Dept. Q novel.
2. This is not like a Dept. Q novel - no delightfully goofy characters.
3. It's a spy story and probably a reasonably good one, but I couldn't remember who was who or who had done what to whom, when.
4. I appreciated the sound of the narrator's voice and the author's (translator's?) words and I got the gist of the story but didn't follow it from chapter to chapter.
5. I didn't play it during a long car trip and it might be good for that. I don't think it would be confusing to read, but I wouldn't put this on a list of books to actually read - ever.

Don't trust anyone

Good story that kept me listening way too late. I couldn't stop. There are many characters and that was a bit confusing at times (especially with the audiobook.) As in real life, bad things happen to good people. Or are they good people? This book will make you question loyalties.

Great narrator.

I really like this author.

Smart Spy Suspense Story Starring Emma Bovary

I qualify this review by saying I don't read many spy novels. I saw the Audible promo, read the description and, although I've never before heard of Olen Steinhauer, I thought I'd take a chance. After I'd listened only about 20 minutes, I was hooked. Mr. Steinhauer makes the reading experience pleasurable with good dialogue, an intriguing subtext and setting and a suspenseful storyline involving spies in Cairo and a plot (or not) in Libya to overthrow Gaddafi.

And, he splashes enough character development that you like or dislike the protagonist. Here, I felt toward the main character Sophie about the same as I did toward Madame Bovary, at least for most of the book, in that they had similar *character defects*; the latter's were much worse. I liked the ending here though, unlike Madame B.

And, of course, Ballerini did his usual fine job.

Maybe spy novel afficionados will gripe with whether it's realistic or intelligent enough. I don't know.

All I can say was that I enjoyed the heck out of it.

if you liked "The Tourist," you'll love this.

This story has similar themes of loyalty and betrayal, who can trust whom, etc., but with completely new characters and a contemporary setting. (An attempted overthrow of Kadafi in Lybia) Lots of characters from many nationalities are expertly narrated by Ballerini. He is excellent with both men and women, and his accent rings true (at least, consistent) with all characters. If you want every detail of a plot tied up with a nice bow, don't listen to this story: Life doesn't work that way, so why should this tale? I hope that this signals that there may be another book with some of these characters.

Great book, great narration

This is the second time I’ve read/listened to this book. I’m not a regular connoisseur of spy novels, so I can’t say for certain, but I think this a top-notch spy/intrigue book. I especially love the setting and historical parts to it.

I also was a huge fan of the narration.

In the widening gyre

I love great genre fiction. Steinhauer represents some of the very best of modern espionage literature. While he hasn't yet reached the level of le Carré, he is now firmly on the top shelf of literary spy fiction with peers like le Carré, Littell, Furst, etc.

The Cairo Affair is an important bookmark in espionage fiction. In this 21st Century, post 9-11 world, Steinhauer (along with le Carré) is the goto fiction writer to understand the nuances of private-contract espionage, post-Soviet global realignments, and the moral failings of a waning American empire (all with a non-US-centric outlook on espionage and foreign policy). The Cairo Affair highlights the fact that the CIA is slowly losing its place as the gravitational center of the spy universe and seems to have lost its principled, idealistic foundations as well.