Once a Spy

January 11, 2010
Huffington Post
columnist Thomson’s wildly original debut, a darkly satirical thriller, features an unlikely, if endearing, father-son spy duo: retired appliance salesman Drummond Clark, who at age 64 suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, and Charlie Clark, a down-on-his-luck gambler who owes $23,000 to Russian loan sharks. Soon after Charlie rescues Drummond from the Brooklyn streets, where he’d been wandering, the older man’s house blows up and the two barely escape with their lives. Clark and son begin an adrenaline-fueled cross-country flight in which they must evade ruthless CIA assassins long enough to understand why they’re being targeted. During rare moments of lucidity, Drummond hotwires a car and effortlessly kills multiple assailants, suggesting to Charlie he was once much more than just a washing machine salesman. Poignant themes of love and redemption underpin an action-packed story line that includes exotic locales, high-tech gadgetry, and international intrigue.

January 1, 2010
Once a daring, covert CIA agent, 64-year-old Drummond Clark is now suffering from Alzheimers, waiting in a Brooklyn social-service agency in his pajamas for his son, Charlie, to take him home. When Charlie, who thinks his father was a humdrum appliance salesman, gets Dad home, Drummonds house explodes. Charlie and Drummond survive, but they are pursued by assassins, and Charlie begins to learn that his father has knowledge and talents not usually found in appliance salesmen. Charlie, whose knowledge of derring-do comes from PlayStation, must quickly raise his own game because he never knows when Drummond will sink into dementia. First-novelist Thomson has his tongue firmly in cheek in this clever, engaging, and frenetic tale. He writes for the Huffington Post on intelligence, and his knowledge of spooks tools, techniques, and mind-sets builds verisimilitude, assuming that readers can suspend disbelief to accept that Brooklyn and rural Virginia are teeming with spies. A terrifically entertaining thriller.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2010, American Library Association.)