The Spy Who Loved Me

The Expats
Chris Pavone
Fiction

This book is full of twists and turns. I was hooked from the first page, and that is a rarity for me.

The Expats is about a woman named Kate. She’s married to Dexter and they have two sons. They’ve all just recently moved to Luxembourg for Dexter’s job. Kate actually isn’t quite sure what Dexter does, something in banking and trading. She herself is having a hard time letting of of her old job because she used to work for the CIA. Dexter doesn’t know this, though, and she’s struggling with the day-to-day housewife stuff while also becoming more and more suspicious of what her husband's job really entails.

Mr. Pavone is an excellent writer and Kate is quite a sympathetic character. The mystery of Dexter’s job and Kate’s increasing paranoia grow steadily and build to a great climax. I was on the edge of my seat most of the time. I guess my only complaint would be how unrealistic I thought it was that Kate didn’t bother to know what exactly Dexter did until her suspicions were finally aroused. It’s understandable because then she would’ve had to answer questions about her own job, but the thing is, most of us talk about work to our significant others so the fact that they’d avoided it after being married for years just struck me as weird. But since it was essential for the plot of the book, I forgave it.

If you like suspense mysteries with lots of good characters and twists and turns, you will like this book. And even if you normally don’t like those things, pick it up. I don’t and I’m glad I did.