Olen Steinhauer’s first two novels, The Bridge of Sighs and The Confession, launched an acclaimed literary crime series set in post-World War II Eastern Europe. Now he takes his dynamic cast of characters into the shadowy political climate of the 1960s. State Security Officer Brano Sev’s job is to do what his superiors ask, no matter what–even if that means leaving his post to work the assembly line in a factory, fitting electrical wires into gauges. So when he gets a directive from his old bosses–the intimidating men above him at the Ministry of State Security, collectively known for the address of their headquarters on Yalta Boulevard, a windowless building consisting of blind offices and dark cells–he follows orders.

This time he is to resume his job in State Security and travel to the village of his birth in order to interrogate a potential defector. But when a villager turns up dead shortly after he arrives, Brano is framed for the murder. Trusting his superiors once again, he assumes this is part of their plan and allows it to run its course, a decision that leads him into exile in Vienna, where he finally begins to ask questions.

The answers in 36 Yalta Boulevard, Olen Steinhauer’s tour de force political thriller, teach Comrade Brano Sev that loyalty to the cause might be the biggest crime of all.

From Olen Steinhauer, the author of New York Times bestseller The Tourist, comes his intimate, most cerebral, and most shocking novel to date, All the Old Knives–now a Major Motion Picture Starring Chris Pine and Thandiwe Newton.

Six years ago in Vienna, terrorists took over a hundred hostages, and the rescue attempt went terribly wrong. The CIA’s Vienna station was witness to this tragedy, gathering intel from its sources during those tense hours, assimilating facts from the ground and from an agent on the inside. So when it all went wrong, the question had to be asked: Had their agent been compromised, and how?

Two of the CIA’s case officers in Vienna, Henry Pelham and Celia Harrison, were lovers at the time, and on the night of the hostage crisis Celia decided she’d had enough. She left the agency, married and had children, and is now living an ordinary life in the idyllic town of Carmel-by-the-Sea. Henry is still a case officer in Vienna, and has traveled to California to see her one more time, to relive the past, maybe, or to put it behind him once and for all.

But neither of them can forget that long-ago question: Had their agent been compromised? If so, how? Each also wonders what role tonight’s dinner companion might have played in the way the tragedy unfolded six years ago.

In Olen Steinhauer’s bestseller The Tourist, reluctant CIA agent Milo Weaver uncovered a conspiracy linking the Chinese government to the highest reaches of the American intelligence community, including his own Department of Tourism—the most clandestine department in the Company. The shocking blowback arrived in the Hammett Award–winning The Nearest Exit when the Department of Tourism was almost completely wiped out as the result of an even more insidious plot.

Following on the heels of these two spectacular novels comes An American Spy, Olen Steinhauer’s most stunning thriller yet. With only a handful of “tourists”—CIA-trained assassins—left, Weaver would like to move on and use this as an opportunity to regain a normal life, a life focused on his family. His former boss in the CIA, Alan Drummond, can’t let it go. When Alan uses one of Milo’s compromised aliases to travel to London and then disappears, calling all kinds of attention to his actions, Milo can’t help but go in search of him.

Worse still, it’s beginning to look as if Tourism’s enemies are gearing up for a final, fatal blow.

With An American Spy, Olen Steinhauer, by far the best espionage writer in a generation, delivers a searing international thriller that will settle once and for all who is pulling the strings and who is being played.

An American Spy is one of The New York Times Notable Books of 2012.

“Olen Steinhauer’s Milo Weaver novels are must-reads for lovers of the genre.” —The Washington Post

“Readers are irresistibly drawn into Weaver’s dogged struggle to unravel a complicated game of cat and mouse.” –USA Today

In 1975, a People’s Militia homicide investigator is on a plane for Istanbul when it is hijacked by Armenian terrorists. Before the Turkish authorities can fulfill the hijackers’ demands, the plane explodes in midair.

Two investigators, a secret policeman and a homicide detective, are assigned to the case. Both believe that their superiors are keeping them in the dark, but they can’t figure out why … until they begin to realize that everything is connected to a seven-year-old murder, a seemingly insignificant killing that has had far-reaching consequences.

Politics and history, for which Olen Steinhauer’s novels are most praised, turn intimate and highly compelling in this new novel, reminiscent of John le Carré’s best.

A young man struggles to find his identity in this short story by the bestselling author of The Tourist.

Olen Steinhauer’s crafty story begins as an affectionate recounting by Tom, a down-on-his-luck graduate caring for his sick mother and reconnecting with his awkward friend, Jerry McLaughlin. Jerry lives in a relative’s basement in Chicago, and over the intervening months the two young men strategize Jerry’s seemingly innocuous plan to become a super-villain in the spirit of Bond greats like Blofeld. Things turn dark, however, when Jerry’s plans find success, and he enlists the wayward Tom to help him expand his little start-up to the next level. At turns witty and diabolical, “The Start-Up” is a fiendish take on the spy genre, as well as the dangerous friendships of Highsmith, le Carre, and others.

“Start-Up” by Olen Steinhauer is one of 20 short stories within Mulholland Books’s Strand Originals series, featuring thrilling stories by the most legendary authors in the Strand Magazine archives. View the full series list at mulhollandbooks.com and read them all!

In this auspicious literary crime debut, an inexperienced homicide detective struggles amid the lawlessness of a post-World War II Eastern European city. It’s August, 1948, three years after the Russians “liberated” this small nation from German occupation. But the Red Army still patrols the capital’s rubble-strewn streets, and the ideals of the Revolution are but memories. Twenty-two-year-old Detective Emil Brod, an eager young man who spent the war working on a fishing boat in Finland, finally gets his chance to serve his country, investigating murder for the People’s Militia. The victim in Emil’s first case is a state songwriter, but the evidence seems to point toward a political motive. He would like to investigate further, but even in his naivete he realizes that the police academy never prepared him for this peculiar post-war environment in which his colleagues are suspicious or silent, lawlessness and corruption are the rules of the city, and he’s still expected to investigate a murder. He is truly on his own in this new, dangerous world. The Bridge of Sighs launches a unique series of crime novels featuring a dynamic cast of characters in an ever-evolving landscape, the politically volatile terrain of Eastern Europe in the second half of the twentieth century.

Sophie Kohl is living her worst nightmare. Minutes after she confesses to her husband, a mid-level diplomat at the American embassy in Hungary, that she had an affair while they were in Cairo, he is shot in the head and killed.

Stan Bertolli, a Cairo-based CIA agent, has fielded his share of midnight calls. But his heart skips a beat when he hears the voice of the only woman he ever truly loved, calling to ask why her husband has been assassinated.

Omar Halawi has worked in Egyptian intelligence for years, and he knows how to play the game. Foreign agents pass him occasional information, he returns the favor, and everyone’s happy. But the murder of a diplomat in Hungary has ripples all the way to Cairo, and Omar must follow the fall-out wherever it leads.

American analyst Jibril Aziz knows more about Stumbler, a covert operation rejected by the CIA, than anyone. So when it appears someone else has obtained a copy of the blueprints, Jibril alone knows the danger it represents.

As these players converge in Cairo in The Cairo Affair, Olen Steinhauer’s masterful manipulations slowly unveil a portrait of a marriage, a jigsaw puzzle of loyalty and betrayal, against a dangerous world of political games where allegiances are never clear and outcomes are never guaranteed.

Eastern Europe, 1956 — Comrade Inspector Ferenc Kolyeszar, a proletariat writer as well as a state militia homicide detective, is a man on the brink. Estranged from his wife, whom he believes is cheating on him with one of his colleagues, and frustrated by writer’s block, Ferenc’s attention is focused on his job. But his job is growing increasingly political, something that makes him profoundly uncomfortable. When Ferenc is asked to look into the disappearance of a party member’s wife and learns some unsavory facts about their lives, the absurdity of his position as an employee of the state is suddenly exposed. At the same time, he and his fellow militia officers are pressed into service policing a popular demonstration in the capital, one that Ferenc might rather be participating in. These two situations, coupled with an investigation into the murder of a painter that leads them to a man recently released from the camps, brings Ferenc closer to danger than ever before—from himself, from his superiors, and from the capital’s shadowy criminal element. The Confession is a fantastic follow-up to Olen Steinhauer’s brilliant debut, The Bridge of Sighs, and propelled this talented writer into the ranks of the premiere thriller writers of a generation.

“Stunning . . . Steinhauer reinforces his position at the top of the espionage genre.” –Publishers Weekly, Starred Review

New York Times bestselling author Olen Steinhauer brings back Milo Weaver in The Last Tourist.

In Olen Steinhauer’s bestseller An American Spy, reluctant CIA agent Milo Weaver thought he had finally put “Tourists”–CIA-trained assassins–to bed.

A decade later, Milo is hiding out in Western Sahara when a young CIA analyst arrives to question him about a series of suspicious deaths and terrorist chatter linked to him.

Their conversation is soon interrupted by a new breed of Tourists intent on killing them both, forcing them to run.

As he tells his story, Milo is joined by colleagues and enemies from his long history in the world of intelligence, and the young analyst wonders what to believe. He wonders, too, if he’ll survive this encounter.

After three standalone novels, Olen Steinhauer returns to the series that made him a New York Times bestseller.

A Macmillan Audio production from Minotaur Books

“Olen Steinhauer is one of the most talented of the new generation of spy writers. His characters are nuanced, his storylines rooted in today’s headlines but with added zing, like a burst of citrus in a dry Martini…the skill of Steinhauer’s writing makes this much more than a standard chase thriller.” — Financial Times

“Steinhauer once again demonstrates his mastery in creating suspense…Ari Fliakos calmly narrates while capturing colorfully the array of characters in this multilayered book.” — Washington Post

In The Middleman, Olen Steinhauer, New York Times bestselling author of ten titles, including The Tourist and The Cairo Affair, delivers a compelling portrait of a nation on the edge of revolution, and the deepest motives of the men and women on the opposite sides of the divide.

One day in the early summer of 2017, about four hundred people disappear from their lives. They leave behind cell phones, credit cards, jobs, houses, families–everything–all on the same day. Where have they gone? Why? The only answer, for weeks, is silence.

Kevin Moore is one of them. Former military, disaffected, restless, Kevin leaves behind his retail job in San Francisco, sends a good-bye text to his mother, dumps his phone and wallet into a trash can, and disappears.

The movement calls itself the Massive Brigade, and they believe change isn’t coming fast enough to America. But are they a protest organization, a political movement, or a terrorist group? What do they want? The FBI isn’t taking any chances. Special Agent Rachel Proulx has been following the growth of left-wing political groups in the U.S. since the fall of 2016, and is very familiar with Martin Bishop, the charismatic leader of the Massive Brigade. But she needs her colleagues to take her seriously in order to find these people before they put their plan–whatever it is–into action.

What Rachel uncovers will shock the entire nation, and the aftermath of her investigation will reverberate through the FBI to the highest levels of government.

More praise for The Middleman:

“The Middleman is smart and entertaining and consistently intriguing” — New York Times Book Review

“The Middleman, with its abundance of multidimensional characters and political viewpoints, is a thought-provoking novel that never ceases to excite as a thriller.” — Wall Street Journal

Milo Weaver has nowhere to turn but back to the CIA in Olen Steinhauer’s brilliant follow-up to the New York Times bestselling espionage novel The Tourist

The Tourist, Steinhauer’s first contemporary novel after his awardwinning historical series, was a runaway hit, spending three weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and garnering rave reviews from critics.

Now faced with the end of his quiet, settled life, reluctant spy Milo Weaver has no choice but to turn back to his old job as a “tourist.” Before he can get back to the CIA’s dirty work, he has to prove his loyalty to his new bosses, who know little of Milo’s background and less about who is really pulling the strings in the government above the Department of Tourism-or in the outside world, which is beginning to believe the legend of its existence. Milo is suddenly in a dangerous position, between right and wrong, between powerful self-interested men, between patriots and traitors-especially as a man who has nothing left to lose.

“Milo Weaver, Steinhauer’s hero, is the opposite of Swagger and Reacher–he is conflicted and neurotic and hopelessly sentimental–but no less entertaining.” –Malcolm Gladwell, TheNewYorker.com

“Milo’s company is at least as valuable to the series’s appeal as is his flair for international trickery.” –Janet Maslin, The New York Times

“There are tourists from all over the world. Most of them want to kill you.”—The Black Book of Tourism

In this contemporary international thriller that is reminiscent of John le Carré and Graham Greene, Milo Weaver has tried to leave his old life of secrets and lies behind by giving up his job as a “tourist” for the CIA—an undercover agent with no home, no identity—and working a desk at the CIA’s New York headquarters. But staying retired from the field becomes impossible when the arrest of a long-sought-after assassin sets off an investigation into one of Milo’s oldest colleagues and friends. Soon Milo is drawn into a conspiracy that links riots in the Sudan, an assassin committing suicide, and an old friend who’s been accused of selling secrets to the Chinese. With new layers of intrigue being exposed in his old cases, and with the CIA and Homeland Security after him, he has no choice but to go back undercover and find out who’s been pulling the strings once and for all. In The Tourist, Olen Steinhauer—twice nominated for the Edgar Award—tackles an intricate story of betrayal and manipulation, loyalty and risk, in an utterly compelling novel that is both thoroughly modern and yet also reminiscent of the espionage genre’s most touted luminaries.

The revolutionary politics and chaotic history at the heart of Olen Steinhauer’s literary crime series set in Eastern Europe have made it one of today’s most acclaimed, garnering two Edgar Award nominations and numerous other awards. Upon reaching the tumultuous 1980s, the series comes full circle as one of the People’s Militia’s earliest cases reemerges to torment its inspectors, including militia chief Emil Brod, the original detective on the case. His arrest of a revolutionary leader in the late 1940s resulted in the politician’s imprisonment, but at the time Emil was too young to understand how great the cost would be. Only now, in 1989, when he is days from retirement and spends more and more time looking over his shoulder, does he realize that what he did in the line of duty may get him–and others–killed. By fusing a story of revenge at any cost with a portrait of a country on the brink of collapse, Steinhauer masterfully brings the personal and political together with devastating results–and once again raises crime fiction to a stunning new level.