After six years of being published over in England, Charles Cumming’s debut novel A SPY BY NATURE makes it to our shores. It’s a taut thriller of how one becomes a cog in the greater spy world.

Alec Milus is a young man whose has been working for a petty con man, selling advertising for a journal that is sent just to the people who buy advertising. Alec works on commission and makes a living, but he understands this is a total dead-end future. Then he is approached by a family friend about working in the foreign office. What this person means by “foreign office” is really MI6: the British version of the CIA.

He is put through a battery of tests – solving problems either math- or team-oriented – with four other candidates. All through this, Alec thinks so highly of himself, he believes he is a shoo-in for the job. That is, until the psych profile where he starts contradicting information about himself he already gave. This doesn’t sit well, and Alec is passed over.

Later, he is contacted again by the family friend with another job prospect: as a satellite agent for MI5 instead – not a full agent, mind you, but a sort of work-for-hire option that might bring him into the fold. Figuring one agency is like any other, he jumps at the opportunity.

All Alec has to do is become friendly with an American couple working for an oil company, while Alec works for a smaller rival one called Abnex. It’s run by former MI5 agents who want Alec to pass along false info to the Americans, whom they believe have been trying to turn the employees of company. It’s all about industrial espionage now that the Cold War has ended, even spying on their “friends,” the Americans.

Cumming’s novel exhales a fresh breath of air into the spy genre. We’ve seen the “new recruit” spy story before, but never as well done as this. It’s all told through the tunnel vision of Alec, reminding me of Len Deighton’s writing; Cumming closely that writer resembles in style and storytelling.

You feel the pressure that is driving Alec, even as the walls are closing in on him. You’re not sure how things will turn out. Is it pitch-perfect? No, but it does come close, making it one of the better books in the genre, authored by a new voice in spy fiction. –Bruce Grossman

Buy it at Amazon.