Summary: National interests may not be the primary driver of undercover and black-ops spying, but information will always have value.
As a reader, I like to read a series together, or at least not too far apart. I started reading the Game of Thrones novels around 2002 or 2003. The first in the series came out in 1996. The next three books came out in 1998, 2000, and 2005. Six years later when the fifth book of the still not completed series came out, I decided I would not read any further until the whole series was released. When there are five, ten or even more years between books in a closely related series, you really need to re-read the books in order to have a close enough memory of the details to understand subtle plot points. Especially in a spy novel like the ones that le Carré or Steinhauer write, those details matter.
I first read The Tourist, the first of this series in 2009 right after it came out. My memory is that it was a recommendation of John Wilson, editor of the then-active Books and Culture magazine. The next two books came out in 2010 and 2012. It is likely that I should have reread at least the third novel before reading the fourth. But I hoped that I would remember details as I read, and I think I mostly did.
Spy novels are in some ways an affirmation of the Christian theological concept of total depravity. It is not that there is no good in them, or no sense of virtue or loyalty or character. But that virtually all good spy novels know that even if a character is virtuous or loyal, there are temptations and a good spy has to assume that not everyone will maintain their virtue or character. It is a genre that lends itself to cynicism. It is why even though I really like le Carré's writing, the cynicism means I limit my reading of his books.
This is a bit of a spoiler, but a fairly minor one. The early books grapple with how the US is no longer always the good guys. If anything, the US is largely the bad guys in this series. Being the primary superpower means that the access to power tempts the US to overreach and assume that their self-perceived ends will justify their means.
I thought of some of the writing of the classic sci-fi author Robert Heinlein as I read this fourth book. Heinlein was a techno-libertarian. He thought the concept of the democratic nation-state would give way to city-states, religious authoritarianism, and class-based superstructures that allowed those with wealth to live as they pleased with the vast majority living as types of serfs. Steinhauer is not there yet, but there is an exploration of how our digital world and the network of huge tech companies that suck up all of our data with little regard for national boundaries or legal boundaries will impact the concept of national spy systems. In some ways the limitation of spy novels is that the genre requires good people, even if cynical or self-interested, to oppose those that are selfish and without moral or ethical boundries. The system breaks down at some point. Internally there is no one that is wholly good. And in some ways, the genre inserts its convention to make people that are wholly evil as a foil. But Christian theology also asserts that there is no one that is wholly evil either. All are created in the image of God and therefore of inestimable value even if they are on the wrong path.
I think The Last Tourist is a worthy follow-up book even if it was nearly a decade after the third. I think Steinhauer keeps writing books I find interesting in this series, even if I am less interested in his stand-alone novels or his other series.
The Last Tourist by Olen Steinhauer (Milo Weaver #4) Purchase Links: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook
