Although it might be hard to believe, there were some good things that came out of 2020. We were charmed by Millie Bobby Brown’s Enola Holmes, and we laughed, cringed, and were unable to look away from the glorious trainwreck that was Tiger King. Sure, some days melded into each other. And fine, we’re all now Vitamin D-deficient.…
You have so many details woven into the story like the CIA office in the World Trade Center and the precursor to the CIA, the Pond. Did you find these true facts before you wrote “The Tourist” or did you add them later? Was there an advisor who had intelligence work knowledge you worked with…
Thank you again to everyone who participated in our Q&A with Olen Steinhauer. We were thrilled with all of your questions, and we tried to choose 10 of them that Olen will answer next week on the site. If your question/username appears below, congratulations on being selected to win an early copy of The Last…
Though this list could run many pages (even just focusing on films of the seventies), I’m sharing a few films that, whether I intended it or not, certainly informed my approach to The Last Tourist with their deft and entertaining critiques of the intersection of politics and business. The Parallax View (1974) For a…
When I first began writing about Milo Weaver in 2007, I was attempting to change course creatively. My earlier writing—five novels set in Eastern Europe during the Cold War—had begun to feel like a kind of escape from the messy, post-9/11 world unfolding around me. Instead of dealing with the world I was living in,…
An Introduction from the Author The idea of a Tourist as a kind of intelligence agent sprang out of my own lifestyle in 2007. I’d never been a spy, committed murder, or smuggled state secrets across borders, but for the previous six years I’d lived as a novelist in Budapest, existing in that tenuous non-place…
Thank you to everyone who participated in last week’s sweepstakes! We were so pleased with all of the excitement this book club has generated, and we wish we could provide even more copies of The Tourist. If your username appears in the below list, congratulations on winning a copy of The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer.…
The End of Tourism Monday, September 10 To Tuesday, September 11, 2001 Chapter 1 Four hours after his failed suicide attempt, he descended toward Aerodrom Ljubljana. A tone sounded, and above his head the seat belt sign glowed. Beside him, a Swiss businesswoman buckled her belt and gazed out the window at the clear Slovenian…
Every Wednesday, we here at Criminal Element will put together a list of Staff Picks of the books that published the day before—sharing the ones that we are looking forward to reading the most! This week, Olen Steinhauer’s contemporary thriller combines with another fantastic anthology edited by Otto Penzler to highlight a great week of books! See what else we’re…
The Middleman by Olen Steinhauer—the perfect thriller for our tumultuous, uneasy time—delivers a compelling portrait of a nation on the edge of revolution and the deepest motives of the men and women on the opposite sides of the divide. Prefer audiobooks? Click here to listen to Chapter 1! One day in the early summer of 2017,…
