Twice a Spy by Keith Thomson

Picking up just a few weeks after the events of Once a Spy ended, Twice a Spy finds father and son Drummond and Charlie Clark, fugitives wanted for capital crimes in America, on the run trying to avoid an international manhunt for them.

Along with Charlie’s girlfriend and renegade NSA agent, Alice Rutherford, the Clarks are off the grid in Switzerland, trying to find a way to establish their innocence as well as looking into alternative treatments for Drummond’s advancing Alzheimer’s.

Having only recently learned that his father’s entire humdrum life as an appliance salesman with Perriman Appliances had been a front for his career as a CIA operative, Charlie is still coming to grips with the fact his dad has James Bond-like skills and holds secrets with world changing implications in his increasingly unreliable mind.

When Alice is kidnapped by a group that demands Drummond provide them with the location of a nuclear bomb, which was disguised as a washing machine as part of the cover project Drummond and his fellow “appliance salesmen” were working on, Charlie and Drummond once again find themselves having to rely on Charlie’s street smarts and Drummond’s intermittent flashes of his old spy self in order to stay one step ahead of the law and save the day.

Just as in Once a Spy, spy gadgets, surveillance and counter-surveillance techniques, non-stop action, and plot twists abound in Twice a Spy. Yet despite the James Bond meets Jack Bauer breakneck pace with global ramifications, it’s the relationship between Drummond and Charlie that really propels Twice a Spy. Amidst the amphibious vehicle chases, gun fights, plane crashes, and wicked one-liners, author Keith Thomson has subtly and skillfully worked a quite touching plot line about the reuniting of a father and son into a spy thriller.

With Twice a Spy Thomson clearly and unquestionably demonstrates that the success of Once a Spy was no fluke. It’s not very charitable to the Clarks for me to say this, but I for one hope their unfortunate talent for finding themselves up to their eyes in espionage and intrigue never ends. Once was great, Twice was even better…Third time’s the charm, right? Can’t wait!

Twice a Spy will be released on March 8th from Doubleday (ISBN: 978-0385530798). You can preview a free excerpt here.