Le Carré and Deighton fans will welcome New Yorker
cartoonist Steiner's engaging, if enigmatic, first novel, which uses the traditional trappings of the thriller to explore a man's late-life changes. After his unjust dismissal from the CIA, where he was an up-and-coming Middle East policy expert, Louis Morgon finds refuge in rural France. Decades later, someone deposits a corpse with a slit throat on his doorstep. While little mystery surrounds the identity of the prime conspirator, the story, which uses flashbacks and flash-forwards, avoids pat resolutions and does full justice to the complexities of interpersonal relationships. The scenes set in small-town France capture the atmosphere and pace of life there wonderfully. (Mar. 10)
