THE NEAREST EXIT: OLEN STEINHAUER

I came across Steinhauer in the The Week magazine's book section, where he was asked to name his five favorite books.  They had a brief biography about him and mentioned his prize winning thrillers, mostly about CIA agents, in this case, Milo Weaver, one of the old war horses, ready to hang up his spurs as things have changed so much that Milo no longer enjoys his work, nor believes in it.  Sound familiar.

Milo has been disgraced, for the wrong reasons of course, trying to expose a wily old power hungry Senator and Milo loses, even spending some time in jail.  He gets out and to rehabilitate his reputation, he is off to Europe to prove he's still got it, robbing an art museum, to get cash for the Agency, underfunded now because of a recalcitrant Congress.  His final job, to kidnap and kill a 14 teen year old girl is too much.  He ends up kidnapping her but has a plan, with the help of his father, a Russian agent who works at the UN, who promises to hide her.  Unfortunately, she escapes and is eventually found and killed by another agent.  Milo's actions upset the ire of the Germans.  They begin a search for him. 

Milo's main goal, however, is to find out who set him up, to discover who the mole is inside the agency.  He ends up befriending a German agent after being arrested, a stout, elderly spinster who seems to be second in command of the Secret Service.  They realize they can help each other; he can help her to rid their Agency of a sexual deviant, her boss to be precise, who just happened to frequent a brothel where the girl Milo kidnapped worked for a time.  Synchronicity.  Erika Schwartz is able to help Milo by leading him to the mole, one of the aides to the Senator.  Unfortunately, the mole's Chinese keeper realizes the mole's cover has been blown and has her killed before Milo can get to her.  Dam. 

While all this is going on, Milo is trying to repair his marriage, a difficult task since he has not been honest with his wife about what he's been doing for the past 20 years.  He promises to quit the agency, goes back, then promises again, but goes back to find out who led this young girl in to prostitution.  All seems settled in the end until the young girl's father, led to Milo by the Chinese keeper, comes to Brooklyn, rings Milo's bell and shoots him in the stomach when he comes outside.  His wife takes him to the hospital, but Milo tells her he deserves this bullet, though not explaining why.  He lives, the Chinese keeper triumphs, sort of, and we don't know what's up with Milo for the rest of his life.  Will he stay with his wife and child or be pulled back in to the Agency.