The Last Spy

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.)