The double game

Format:

Book

Title:

The double game

Author:

Fesperman, Dan, 1955- author

ISBN:

9780307700131

9780857893383

Edition:

First edition.

Publication:

New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2012.

Physical Description:

355 pages ; 25 cm

General Note:

"This is a Borzoi book"--Title page verso.

Contents:

This is a thrillingly inventive novel about spies and their secrets, fathers and sons, lovers and fate, and duplicity and loyalty -- a wonderful maze of intrigue built from the espionage classics of the Cold War. A few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, spook-turned-novelist Edwin Lemaster reveals to young journalist Bill Cage that he'd once considered spying for the enemy. For Cage, a fan who grew up as a Foreign Service brat in the very cities where Lemaster set his plots, the story creates a brief but embarrassing sensation. More than two decades later, Cage, by then a lonely, disillusioned PR man, receives an anonymous note hinting that he should have dug deeper. Spiked with cryptic references to some of his and his father's favorite old spy novels, the note is the first of many literary bread crumbs that soon lead him back to Vienna, Prague, and Budapest in search of the truth, even as the events of Lemaster's past eerily -- and dangerously -- begin intersecting with those of his own. Why is beautiful Litzi Strauss back in his life after 30 years? How much of his father's job involved the CIA? Did Bill, as a child, become a pawn? As the suspense steadily increases, a long stalemate of secrecy may finally be broken. It is suitable for fans of intelligent thrillers and espionage fiction -- Le Carre, Sam Bourne, and John Lawton.

Summary:

A thrillingly inventive novel about spies and their secrets, fathers and sons, lovers and fate, and duplicity and loyalty - a maze of intrigue built from the espionage classics of the Cold War. A few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, spook-turned-novelist Edwin Lemaster reveals to up-and-coming journalist Bill Cage that he'd once considered spying for the enemy. More than two decades later, Cage, by then a lonely, disillusioned PR man, receives an anonymous note hinting that he should have dug deeper. A novel with references throughout to famous spy novels.

Corporate Subject:

United States. Central Intelligence Agency -- Fiction.

United States. Central Intelligence Agency. (OCoLC)fst00536259

Subject(s):

United States. Central Intelligence Agency -- Fiction.

Journalists -- Washington (D.C.) -- Fiction.

Fathers and sons -- Fiction.

Intelligence officers -- Fiction.

Cold War -- Fiction.

Moles (Spies) -- Fiction.

Secrets -- Fiction.

Fate and fatalism -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Genre:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Silver Falls Library	FIC FESPERMAN	Searching... Unknown
Searching... Willamina Public Library	FIC FESPERMAN	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

A few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, spook-turned-novelist Edwin Lemaster revealed to up-and-coming journalist Bill Cage that he'd once considered spying for the enemy. For Cage, a Foreign Service brat who grew up in the very cities where Lemaster's books were set, the news story created a brief but embarrassing sensation and heralded the beginning of the end of his career in journalism.

More than two decades later, Cage, now a lonely, disillusioned PR man, receives an anonymous note hinting that he should have dug deeper into Lemaster's pronouncement. Spiked with cryptic references to some of Cage's favorite spy novels, the note is the first of many literary bread crumbs that lead him back to Vienna, Prague, and Budapest, each instruction drawing him closer to the complex truth, each giving rise to more questions: Why is beautiful Litzi Strauss back in his life after thirty years? How much of his father's job involved the CIA? As the events of Lemaster's past eerily--and dangerously--begin intersecting with those of Cage's own, a "long stalemate of secrecy" may finally be coming to an end.

A story about spies and their secrets, fathers and sons, lovers and fate, duplicity and loyalty, The Double Game ingeniously taps the espionage classics of the Cold War to build a spellbinding maze of intrigue. It is Dan Fesperman's most audacious, suspenseful, and satisfying novel yet.

Author Notes

Dan Fesperman's travels as a writer have taken him to thirty countries and three war zones. Lie in the Dark won the Crime Writers' Association of Britain's John Creasey Memorial Dagger Award for best first crime novel, The Small Boat of Great Sorrows won their Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award for best thriller, and The Prisoner of Guantánamo won the Dashiell Hammett Award from the International Association of Crime Writers. He lives in Baltimore.

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

The highly accomplished Fesperman (Lie in the Dark), a veteran of the sophisticated, literary novel of intrigue, makes spy fiction a central "character" in this ambitious-but overly complex-story involving journalist turned PR man Bill Cage. The action opens in 1984, when Cage interviews Edwin Lemaster, a spy who became "the world's premier espionage novelist," and elicits a vague confession: that he might have betrayed his country just "[f]or the thrill of it." Fast forward to 2010 when Cage receives a hand-delivered letter-typed on his own stationary and on his own typewriter-that promises to deliver "the whole truth" about Lemaster. Cage plays along, deciphering the clue in the first note to find a "dead drop" to receive further instructions. The trail takes him to Vienna, where he had lived as a teenager with his father, a member of the diplomatic corps who might have had a toe in the world of espionage. One clue leads him to a meeting with his old flame, Litzi Strauss, and together they travel to Prague and Budapest. Cage is enveloped in a fog of intrigue, but it feels too much like an elaborate game-no real menace, nothing really at stake-and the reader's patience wears thin while trying to make sense of the intricately constructed and highly contrived plot. Still, perceptive readers-particularly those familiar with the spy literature-might still enjoy this beautifully written book. First printing: 40,000. (Aug. 23) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Kirkus Review

In 1984, young Washington Post writer Bill Cage ignited a miniscandal by reporting that spy novelist Edwin Lemaster--"the American John le Carr"--had considered working as a Soviet double agent when he was with the CIA. More than 25 years later, Cage follows up his story for Vanity Fair--duly warned by his father, a former diplomat who knew Lemaster, to watch his back. The distinguishing feature of Fesperman's nostalgia-soaked novel is that its clues and secret instructions take the form of quoted passages from classic spy novels by le Carr, Eric Ambler, Len Deighton, Charles McCarry, etc. Like his father, Warfield, Cage is a spy buff who can quote from those books (and Lemaster's) verbatim. He secures the magazine assignment mainly as an excuse to leave his dreary PR job and return to his childhood haunts in Vienna, Prague, Berlin and Budapest. But, stoked by anonymous tips, odd coincidences and revelations about his secretive old man, he soon becomes obsessed over solving the mysteries of Lemaster's past. The romantic stakes are raised when Bill's boyhood girlfriend, Litzi, turns up in Vienna; feelings of nostalgia are disrupted when a player in this espionage drama gets shot in the face, KGB-style. Fans of spy novels will enjoy Fesperman's affectionate homage. As literate and well-executed as this book is, however, it lacks the deeper dimensions that would make it more than a clever generic exercise. The father-son business, also involving Cage's child, David, is affecting, but held against the high standards of le Carr's A Perfect Spy, it is lightweight. Has its limitations, but in re-sparking interest in classic spy fiction, it attains maximum impact.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* In the mid-1980s, journalist Bill Cage inadvertently reveals a startling secret about best-selling spy turned novelist Edwin Lemaster. Many years later, Cage now a former journalist, his own career, like Lemaster's, never having recovered from that incident is lured into a web of intrigue by a nameless individual who hints that, with his Lemaster revelation, Cage had only scratched the surface. What's especially clever here is the way Cage's anonymous handler (for Cage soon thinks of himself as a spy being run by an unknown operator) uses works of spy fiction to communicate encoded messages rely on Cage's virtually encyclopedic knowledge of spy fiction, and shadowy characters who wander in and out of the story bear physical resemblance to characters in spy novels (and, of course, Lemaster himself, the focal point of the intrigue, is a hugely popular spy novelist, a sort of American le Carre). At once a celebration of some of the genre's best authors and a smartly constructed and thoroughly modern spy story, this is a surefire hit and a must for anyone who reveres the espionage masters.--Pitt, David Copyright 2010 Booklist