The book
“All the Old Knives” by Olen Steinhauer (Minotaur Books, 294 pages, $23.99)
Olen Steinhauer’s latest espionage novel, “All the Old Knives,” is a different sort of book for him.
Steinhauer can write long complex thrillers. This book is less than 300 pages long, a mere novella by his standards. What’s most unusual is that the author got his inspiration for it by watching a television program.
The TV show was a British production featuring Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman. It was adapted from a poem called “The Song of Lunch” by Christopher Reid. Steinhauer liked the way it depicted two former business associates who were also former lovers sitting down together at a restaurant for a lengthy and somewhat nostalgic meal after their affair has ended.
In an interview the author told me that he was impressed by this story form. After mulling it over he chose to write a novel possessing similar parameters; the story would unspool over the course of a meal being shared by a pair of espionage agents (she’s now retired) who are also former lovers.
Steinhauer can agonize over stories. He’ll discard hundreds of pages, entire drafts, if he finds them wanting. That’s another way that this novel was different. When Steinhauer was on a lengthy visit to Serbia everything he was imagining suddenly clicked into place-the story gelled. He rapidly hammered out a complete draft.
Here’s the set-up: Henry Pelham is a C.I.A. agent based in Vienna, Austria. His former colleague/lover is Celia Favreau, now Celia Harrison. She’s retired from the C.I.A. and now lives with her family in the California community of Carmel-by-the Sea. As the story opens Henry is flying to California to pay Celia a visit. He just happens to be passing through. Or so he says.
The clandestine truth is this: Henry is investigating Celia’s involvement in a situation that occurred while she was still with the C.I.A. There had been a hostage crisis inside a parked plane on a runway at the airport in Vienna. It ended badly. Henry is trying to figure out how this fiasco happened. Did the terrorists who took over the plane have an informer, a mole so to speak, possibly operating from within the U.S. Embassy? What does Celia remember?
During that same period Henry had hoped to take the next step in his relationship with Celia. They were going to begin living together. The tragedy that occurred at the airport is the primary focus here but a personal issue, their mysterious breakup, still bothers him. He’s seeking to obtain information about Celia’s actions during the airport crisis. And he wonders why she decided to leave him.
They meet at an almost deserted restaurant. They have drinks and take their time over dinner. Henry hasn’t gotten over her yet. They reminisce. We shift from Henry’s perspective to Celia’s-back and forth during their conversation. There are extended flashbacks. We revisit the scene of the hijacking, the C.I.A. response and their final days as lovers.
We try to decipher what is really being said and what it all means. While Celia and Henry thrust and parry we wonder how this shall end. “All the Old Knives” is disarmingly deceptive and delightfully clever. The ending is excruciating and delicious.
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