THE TOURIST: OLEN STEINHAUER

This is the second book, in a trilogy about Milo Weaver, CIA secret agent.  Unfortunately, I read the third volume first so I guess I will have to go back and read the first volume next.  Steinhauer is called the modern John LeCarre and I do see some connections, certainly the pulled loyalties of the protagonists, in this text Milo, who just happens to be the son of a Russian spy master though an American, complicating his life just a bit.

This is a strange, complicate book but you do like Milo, so you read on.  Milo is befriended, of all places, in the south by a infamous international sniper, who Milo has been chasing for years.  The sniper tells him that he has been compromised, given AIDS, by his higher ups, wants Milo to avenge him.  He then commits suicide.  The FBI arrives, thinks Milo killed the sniper, so Milo goes on the run.  His trainer, in the Tourism business (secret CIA ops), warns him in time and Milo flees.  Meanwhile, Milo's having trouble with his family because he has not been upfront with them about his past.  To make a long story short, we find that Milo has been misused by his Trainer, who has been double dealing.  When Milo confronts him, the trainer is shot by a sniper, as the Trainer's Bosses are afraid he will tell Milo who they are.  So Milo is supposedly responsible for two killings; he turns himself in finally, after traveling to Europe, meeting up with a CIA friend, who also is killed, and Milo is blamed for this, three murders he did not commit.  Fortunately, an FBI agent believes in Milo, gets him out of the CIA jail, where he is tortured, transfers him to an FBI house, and she then follows various threads that prove that Milo is not guilty of any of these crimes.   But she also finds out that Milo's father was a Russian spy, that Milo lived in Russia for five years with his father and that his mother was an anarchist, who lived in Germany, committed suicide in jail.  This is all too much for Milo's wife, who leaves him and we assume, will not return.  Milo is set free but the chiefs who have been organizing these secret CIA assassinations, to keep China away from African oil,  are still at work.  The trail leads up to a couple of Senators, who will be dealt with in the next book, which I read, by the way.