An American Spy

A Novel

By: Olen Steinhauer

Narrated by: David Pittu

Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

In Olen Steinhauer’s best seller The Tourist, reluctant CIA agent Milo Weaver uncovered a conspiracy linking the Chinese government to the highest reaches of the American intelligence community, including his own Department of Tourism - the most clandestine department in the Company. The shocking blowback arrived in the Hammett Award-winning The Nearest Exit when the Department of Tourism was almost completely wiped out as the result of an even more insidious plot.

Following on the heels of these two spectacular novels comes An American Spy, Olen Steinhauer’s most stunning thriller yet. With only a handful of “tourists” - CIA-trained assassins - left, Weaver would like to move on and use this as an opportunity to regain a normal life, a life focused on his family. His former boss in the CIA, Alan Drummond, can’t let it go. When Alan uses one of Milo’s compromised aliases to travel to London and then disappears, calling all kinds of attention to his actions, Milo can’t help but go in search of him. Worse still, it's beginning to look as if Tourism's enemies are gearing up for a final, fatal blow.

With An American Spy, Olen Steinhauer, by far the best espionage writer in a generation, delivers a searing international thriller that will settle once and for all who is pulling the strings and who is being played.

DAVID PITTU is a two-time Tony Award nominee, as well as the award-winning narrator of countless audiobooks, ranging in genre from young adult (Scholastic’s 39 Clues series) to spy fiction (Olen Steinhauer’s The Last Tourist and Milo Weaver series) to the contemporary fiction of authors such as Jeffrey Eugenides (The Marriage Plot) and Donna Tartt (The Goldfinch) and many more.

Pittu received the Audie Award for Best Male Solo Narration for The Goldfinch, which also received the Audie for Best Literary Fiction.

Not only a veteran theater actor, he works regularly in film and television. He lives in New York City.

©2012 Olen Steinhauer (P)2012 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Olen Steinhauer’s Milo Weaver novels are must-reads for lovers of the genre.” (The Washington Post)

“Readers are irresistibly drawn into Weaver's dogged struggle to unravel a complicated game of cat and mouse.” (USA Today)

A Textured Spy Novel

This is a multilayered story told from multiple points of view. There are no superagents-save perhaps a sexy black woman US Spy--rather everyone on all sides are vulnerable and flawed and under pressure from somewhere. In this respect it is a realistic story. It is a thinking persons spy novel. There are many plot twists and most of them are surprises. The reason it does not rate 5 stars is that it goes on a little too long.

I will be ready for the next one in the series!

I have consumed these three books in as many weeks...and so it was easy to keep the thread of the story throughout. After reading a couple of the other reviews, I thought it was going to be hard to keep the Chinese names straight but because of the excellent narrator, his pronunciation, and his magnificent voices/characters, it wasn't difficult...but I was glad others had indicated that you really had to be on the watch for that.

I will be looking for other books by this author and will stay tuned for the next Milo Weaver book...because I can't imagine Steinhauer won't continue with this troubled and interesting character.

Boy this one went on forever

A plot that went through every hoop and seemed endless. i wish there reader could voice women without them sounding like little girls.

Excellent Addition to the Weaver series

What other book might you compare An American Spy to and why?

This is the third in the series and picks up right after

What about David Pittu’s performance did you like?

Mr. Pittu's accents are subtle enough to never get in the way of comprehension but still provide a good feel for the nationality of the characters. He never misses the humor or irony inherent in the text.

Any additional comments?

All three Weaver novels are timely, suspenseful and witty. They are not necessarily an

Not a bad follow-up...

This book didn't have as much of the spy-craft aspects like the first two books, but if you had read the other two in the series you-ll probably like this one too. Milo gets a little whiny and he seems a bit indecisive and naive at times, which is contrary to what you would expect from his character.

Right up there with the Tourist

Any additional comments?

Not sure why there were so many not great reviews on this third Milo Weaver installment as compared to the first two books. I thoroughly enjoyed it and found the juxtapositioning of the different characters in different time frames in different parts of the world to be interesting. Kept me engaged right to the end. love Olen Steinhauers style...great characters, engaging and believable story lines populated with "real" people.

Awesome conclusion to an excellent trilogy

An awesome conclusion to a thoroughly gripping trilogy of books.

I could not stop listening, but dreaded reaching the conclusion.

Highly recommended!

disappointed

I read the previous 2 books. wanted to know the conclusion.
listened to the end and I still don't know what happened. because of all the Chinese names, listening is not the best way to read this book.

Very complicated

There are many, many characters in this book and the story is quite complicated. It helped to have re-read The Nearest Exit just before embarking on the "listen"; however, I still found the book quite difficult to follow as a listener. I expect that the book would be a very satisfying "read" because, when confused, I could have gone back to review previous chapters. This being said, I enjoy a good puzzle and An American Spy is one of these. Mr. Pittu is an excellent narrator, making this audiobook one of the best performances I have heard this year.

Spy story

This is book 3 of the Milo Weaver series. I think I should have started with book 1 but did not notice this was a series until I start to write the review. I found I had to pay close attention to the story so I could understand what was going on. Not sure if this is because I seemed to have started in the middle of a series or not. Was a lot of action and travelling around the world. It was interesting they made the master Chinese Spy an obese man at 300 pounds. It was interesting to see the interaction between the various counties spies. David Pittu did an adequate job with the narration. Not sure if i will go and read the other books in the series or not.