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"Sophie Kohl is living her worst nightmare. Minutes after she confesses to her husband, Emmett, 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, this time, 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 years ago, 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 on the city of Cairo, 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"--
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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/