The Cairo affair

Short Review: I have read Steinhauer's previous Tourist Trilogy and really enjoyed them. I think Steinhauer is one of the better spy novelists writing today. He is more than John le Carré variety than the Ian Fleming variety. This book is concerned with a plan to overthrow Gaddafi (it is set in 2011 before the change of government). An American CIA analyst prepared the plan, but it was rejected 3 years earlier. But now someone seems to be putting the plan into effect. Sophie Kohl, the wife of an American Diplomat currently in Hungary just watched an assassin kill her husband in front of her and returns to Cairo (where they previously lived) to find out why.

Overall this is a classic spy novel told from a variety of perspectives because no one ever has the full picture. The only real problem with the book it that there is not a central moral center of the book (or at least the main one that comes up is toward the end of the book.) The Milo Weaver equivelent from the Tourist books is just not here.

Other than that, it is a pretty good book.

My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/the-cairo-affair/