PARIAH

#MeToo-banished Hollywood comic Hal Knight is roped by the CIA into spying on Eastern European oligarch Nikolai Horvatz—known to be a big fan of his films.

Knight, who has been hiding out on a Caribbean island, is asked by the agency to simply observe everything about (fictitious) Bolrovia’s “crypto-fascist strongman,” who is certain to invite the one-time star for an official visit. Given the chance to redeem himself or at least perform before a friendly audience, Knight agrees. But it isn’t long before his missteps start raising the hackles of Bolrovian security forces, led by the dour Branko Sarič, “the goon of all goons.” And when his big moment does arrive, Knight sends shock waves through the room and the media by appearing to make Horvatz the butt of a joke. With the violent cracking down on immigrants who have crossed Bolrovia’s southern border, not to mention the curious arrival of American media types including right-wing TV pundit Baxter Frederickson (read: Tucker Carlson), it is not a good time to be risking the president’s ire. A departure for Fesperman, who is known for his tense, finely wrought spy novels—most recently Winter Work (2022)—the new book does as well with a shaky concept as it could. But it’s never made clear what the CIA, which “had gone dark” in Bolrovia when Horvatz began cozying up to Russia and China, hopes to learn from Knight’s efforts. There’s also scant evidence that Knight is (or was) capable of being funny. His one-time popularity is as mysterious as the wisdom he supposedly derives from the marked-up copy of Philip Roth’s American Pastoral he carries around.

A rare misfire by one of spy fiction’s most consistent artists.