The Last Spy

by Bob Reiss

Overview

They seem like perfect Americans. Ash is a prize-winning journalist. David is a major Washington powerbroker. Corinna is a stunningly beautiful Justice Department lawyer. But they're too perfect to be true. And they're not American at all. Trained to live like Americans, they're elite foreign plants, threatening the highest echelons of American society, with a top-secret agenda even they don't know about. And now they're out of control.... The game has changed, and no one has told them the rules. Betrayed by their own country, thrown into a world they cannot trust, three people are about to face the most dangerous enemy of all - each other. In a powerful novel that spins from one explosive surprise to the next, Bob Reiss leads three intriguing players from close camaraderie to bloody betrayal. Provocative, fast-paced, and thoroughly compelling, THE LAST SPY takes us into a new realm of spycraft. "Sparkling and fast-paced . . . A thoroughly engaging thriller . . . that explores how humans behave when their world collapses around them, leaving only doubts amid the rubble." - Boston Sunday Herald "Very readable. This well-wrought tale perfectly captures the undercover agent's sense of paranoia, the inability to trust anyone or anything, and the consequences of that terrible loneliness." - Publisher's Weekly "This is only the second book I've ever read that has taken me away from my family, food, work, and everything else, leaving me curled up on my couch, ignoring the world until it was done; the first book was 'The Silence of the Lambs.' " - Eugene Izzi, author of 'Tribal Secrets' and 'King of the Hustlers' This is a new 2018 edition of the classic novel of espionage and the ultimate powerbroker secret at the end of the Cold War. BOB REISS is a bestselling New York based author and journalist, a former Chicago Tribune reporter and former correspondent for Outside magazine. His work has also appeared in The Washington Post Magazine, Smithsonian, Parade, Rolling Stone, and other national publications.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781610273923
Publisher:	Quid Pro, LLC
Publication date:	10/17/2018
Pages:	326
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.68(d)

Editorial Reviews

In a very readable thriller, his first novel after several nonfiction books, Reiss ( The Road to Extrema ) asks an intriguing question: What happens to a nest of Soviet spies, in deep cover in the U.S. for almost two decades, when the government they serve begins to break down? Washington Post reporter Jimmy Ash and his cell leader, former Undersecretary of State and current lobbyist David Kislak, have been rivals since their boyhood days as trainees in a Russian mock-up of the very American town of Smith Falls, Mass. Their beautiful classmate Corinna Leonard, once married to Ash at the behest of their Communist masters, is now a Justice Department lawyer and David's lover, but she still has a strong hold on her ex-husband's heart. Turmoil inside the Soviet Union and Ash's questioning of David's leadership in the U.S. finally lead to a bloody finale in the real Smith Falls. This well-wrought tale perfectly captures the undercover agent's sense of paranoia, the inability to trust anyone or anything and the consequences of that terrible loneliness. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

With the Soviet Union breaking up, what's a KGB spy in the United States to do? Ash, a special spy raised with several others as an American, is planted as a reporter for the Washington Post. Others of his group are in U.S. government, universities, and so on. Now Ash suspects that David, his American contact and leader, may have drifted from Moscow to work for other governments. After an attempt is made on his life, Ash seeks out members of the group to find out what's going on and what should be done. Along the way he meets a sexy talk-show hostess who is drawn into the chase and his heart. Lots of melodrama, excitement, a touch of sex, and some philosophizing about loyalties add up to a very readable thriller that will appeal to most readers.-- Robert H. Donahugh, formerly with Youngstown & Mahoning Cty. P.L., Ohio

Library Journal

Crackerjack spy yarn about an ultra-deep Soviet agent trying to come in from the cold—and a big step up for Reiss, who's previously spun out only so-so thrillers (Flamingo, 1989; Saltmaker, 1988, etc.). Reiss opens in 1967, with a group of Smith Falls, Mass., schoolkids studying current events—only these kids are Russian, and their town, a training ground for spies that's a carbon copy of the real Smith Falls, sits in Siberia. Cut to 1991: One of the kids, known only as Ash, is now a Washington Post reporter—and, like his ex-classmates, is feeding information back to Moscow through the group's leader, David Kislak. But lately Kislak has inexplicably been asking for data about Third World trade; curious, Ash breaks the cardinal rule of no-contact. Kislak gives Ash a vague explanation and, when Ash leaves, sends a killer after the nosy spy—sparking the nonstop manhunt that dominates the story. Running fast, Ash tracks down another group member; but she, loyal to Kislak, tries to kill Ash—who then seeks refuge in the Soviet embassy in Washington, only to learn that no one there knows of his group: So many years have passed that the group's Moscow controls have died. Kislak, Ash realizes, is acting on his own, fattening his wallet by selling to various parties the data fed him by the group. Meanwhile, Gorbachev is ousted by the coup, and two KGB honchos—an old-liner and a moderate—begin to vie for control of Kislak's network. As Ash heads to the real-life Smith Falls to resolve matters by locating the group's founder, Kislak follows—but the KGB moderate follows as well, cavalry riding to a last- minute rescue during a brutal, bloody climax.High-velocity action plus clever interludes—as when Ash confesses to his girlfriend that he's a spy—add up to a smart, taut thriller, Reiss's best by far.

Kirkus Reviews