The Once and Future Spy: A Novel of Obsession

A rogue CIA operative threatens a clandestine mission in this spy thriller by the New York Times–bestselling author of The Company.

The Once and Future Spy is Littell at the top of his form, constructing a tale of espionage and counterespionage revealing the dirty tricks and dangerous secrets about the subjects he knows intimately the CIA and American history, past and present. Littell proves beyond all doubt that he is a storyteller of inimitable caliber. As Stephen Coonts put it, “Eric Ambler invented the modern spy novel. Robert Littell perfected it. The Once and Future Spy is a classic spy story.”

At the center of Littell’s plot is an elite plan, so secret and so dangerous that its existence is known only to a tiny group of specialists within CIA headquarters. There is virtually no paper trail but, somehow, the plan has sprung a leak. The plotters must urgently trace it or face deadly consequences. Meanwhile, at work elsewhere on another highly sensitive project for “the Company” is an operative known as “the Weeder” a man obsessed with American history and one of its heroes. When the Weeder’s and Washington’s clandestine worlds collide, the present faces the past and disturbing moral choices are weighed against a shining patriotic dream. What is the truth? Whose truth should be believed?

Praise for The Once and Future Spy

“An unusual, absorbing book that should keep you riveted.” —The New York Times

© 2003 The Overlook Press (Ebook): 9781590209042

Release date

Ebook: 10 February 2003