The book jacket of Colin MacKinnon’s Morning Spy, Evening Spy says the novel “holds its own with the best of John le Carré.” Lots of espionage thrillers are promoted as being like le Carré’s. And yes, MacKinnon’s novel is full of spies and foreign intrigue. But MacKinnon is no le Carré. And that’s just fine.

While le Carré’s novels are crammed with the atmospherics and tactics of British intelligence services, MacKinnon provides a good window into how the CIA operates. (In his author’s note, he thanks Gene Poteat and John Waller of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers “for our conversations about how spies live their lives.”) While le Carré’s best novels focus on the West’s war with the Soviet Union before 1991, MacKinnon—former director of the American Institute of Iranian Studies in Tehran—takes us from Washington into the center of today’s conflict in the Middle East, providing interesting insights into how and why 9/11 happened. And while le Carré’s novels can be dense and sometimes slow and hard to follow, MacKinnon’s writing is sharp and fast-moving.

I can't recommend this book enough - a spy novel from someone that can actually write.