The Once and Future Spy

I think Littell fancies himself a John le Carre', which he is not. The characters are cartoonish and the settings sparse. His plot is interesting, and in this book, his description of Nathan Hale's spy mission during the revolution was better than the campish main narrative.......more

Any lover of the spy novel will find in this book a gem of the genre. Littell's knowledge of the spy's shadow world, especially of The Company (CIA), is evident throughout this cleverly plotted, well written, intriguing novel. The characters, unusual as they may be to the average reader, come across......more

This is an odd, but very good, story. Two stories, really. The first concerns a man who has stumbled upon a plot by an American intelligence service, which for the sake of your reading, I won't describe. Neither the service, nor the plot. Suffice it to say that the service is not what you will think......more

Deeply, deeply odd book. A spy thriller, I suppose, but it's really a psychological journey full of grotesques, and it's left very ambiguous at the end how much of it is actually true and how much isn't. Worth reading, although you may come away with a sense of frustrated anticlimax at not knowing w......more

A quick-paced spy thriller that manages to subvert some of the stereotypes while still delivering on the cloak and dagger a reader wants. Also, surprisingly, an exploration of the mythology of Nathan Hale, arguably America’s first spy. Recommended.......more