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  Most spy novels dazzle readers with car chases and high-tech gadgets. B.W. Leavitt’s How to Train a Spy takes a darker path, peeling back the layers of espionage to reveal its most disturbing casualty: the human mind. Leavitt's book is about former Army Sergeant Brian Lewis, a committed family man, as he's recruited into a covert government program meant to build the world's greatest operators. The twist? Suppose Brian is going to be the ultimate spy. In that case, he'll have to leave behind his family, his name, and eventually himself. Throughout the book, Brian undergoes brutal physical and psychological conditioning. Sleep-learning programs feed him new languages and strategies. Virtual reality missions simulate his death over and over, rewiring his fear responses. Each step strips away pieces of the man he used to be. After his makeover, readers are left wondering: Is there anything of Brian Lewis remaining at all? “Espionage stories are often about ...

  What if the next war isn’t fought with tanks or missiles, but with ordinary people turned into covert weapons? B.W. Leavitt’s gripping new novel, How to Train a Spy, rips open the curtain on modern espionage, where individuals like protagonist Brian Lewis are caught in a silent global conflict most citizens will never see. Published by Callaghan Publications in May 2025, the novel takes readers beyond action sequences and into the chilling machinery of international power games. How to Train a Spy doesn’t glorify espionage; it dissects it. Brian, a retired Army Sergeant and corrections officer, is forcibly recruited into a clandestine government program. Promised protection for his family and offered an “opportunity” to serve a greater good, Brian is erased from civilian life and systematically rebuilt into a covert asset. What makes Leavitt’s story so unsettling is its realism. The novel chronicles Brian's training on the next generation of technologies: virtual rea...

  Spy novels often lean on explosions and car chases to keep readers hooked. B.W. Leavitt’s How to Train a Spy takes a different route. It delivers adrenaline, sure, but it also explores the quieter, more devastating parts of espionage, the sacrifices made when a family man agrees to vanish for the “greater good.” Brian Lewis never planned on disappearing for two years. A retired Army Sergeant, he thought his days of serving were over. That changes the night two agents approach him with a classified mission and a life-altering choice. What follows isn’t just about weapons training and undercover operations. It’s about watching Brian wrestle with what it means to abandon his family. Before he leaves, he plans a vacation, spending quiet days with his wife and kids while knowing he won’t be there for birthdays, milestones, or even the little everyday moments. It’s a gut-punch one that lingers long after you close the book. Leavitt does something rare in the spy genre: he ...

  B.W. Leavitt’s How to Train a Spy, published by Callaghan Publications on May 14, 2025, throws readers straight into the heart of modern espionage and doesn’t let go. This isn’t the world of suave tuxedos and shaken martinis. It’s a gritty, down-to-earth take on how an ordinary man can be broken down and rebuilt into something far more dangerous. At its core, the story follows Brian Lewis , a retired Army Sergeant who’s trying to settle into a quiet life as a Corrections Officer. But everything changes one night when two government agents show up at his workplace with an offer he can’t refuse, and probably wouldn’t survive refusing. Brian is swept into a covert program that requires him to completely vanish from his old life, leaving his wife and children behind. The book doesn’t just provide readers with action sequences; it pulls them into Brian’s head as he grapples with the enormity of what he’s signed up for. The transformation isn’t instant or romanticized. Lea...

  The novel by B.W. Leavitt is a thriller that is truly a breath-taking piece of literature in the sense that it does not just narrate the espionage world with its sense of realism, but it also has a very emotional heart that makes a mission that is composed of secrets a very formidable human story. Although most spy-related novels are devoted to the elements of action and intrigue, Leavitt has managed to incorporate the aspects of high-stakes intelligence missions and personal sacrifice, emotional tension, and the deep psychological burden of the shadowy life. The outcome is a powerful story that would attract fans of thrillers, those who enjoy emotional drama, and readers who seek the stories, which touch the human heart in the middle of the perilous missions. The main character of the novel is Brian Lewis, a New York State correctional officer, whose normal life is shattered after the arrival of the federal agents in the middle of the night. Assuming he is under questioning, B...

  B.W. Leavitt How to Train a Spy has come at the right time when the audience is tired of action sequences, over the top gadgets and invincible secret agents. The audiences of today are demanding something authentic, a fiction that has its basis in the truths and difficulties of contemporary intelligence operations, the way of doing things and the emotional realities of the work. Leavitt does precisely that, with detailed precision and captivating storytelling. Instead of focusing the story on a life-long operative or a high-level agent, the novel presents the reader with a new character of Brian Lewis, a correctional officer who finds himself in the secret world of intelligence. His espionage career does not come easy, but it is a disorienting, fearful and personal thing. This style is an indication to the readers at the first page that this story is not going to be of the same model as the genre. Rather, it demonstrates how an average individual can be changed into an efficient...

  How to Train a Spy by B.W. Leavitt is far more than a spy novel in which espionage missions and the intelligence business are the order of the day. The novel at its core takes a look at the human cost that is merely hiding under the surface of undercover missions - cost that in many cases cannot be seen by the naked eye. According to the novel, Brian has a shock to his daily routine that drastically interrupts and alters his usual routine. He is informed that his military background has made him qualified to be chosen to go on a classified mission that was of great significance in the whole world when he is summoned before federal agents in an unexpected manner and taken to an underground intelligence facility. The case of Brian highlights the reality that behind each undercover agent is a man with his fears, attachments and responsibilities- and the secrecy can more often than not involve a very high cost. The author uses the emotional weight to the family of Brian among th...

B.W. Leavitt in his electrifying novel, How to Train a Spy , opens the gate leading to a place that has seldom been accurately explored; the dark world of undercover intelligence affairs carried out deep into Russia, and Iran. In an era whereby, geopolitical tensions are still in the news, Leavitt offers readers a thriller of the first order that is close-up, detailed, and pulse-pounding as it sends its investigators behind the doors of undercover missions, black sites, alias, and the life and death ballet of world powers. The novel is the account of a New York State correctional officer, Brian Lewis, whose life has taken a dramatic and surprising twist after he is enlisted in a government ultra-secret mission of paramount international concern. Once brought to a well-guarded intelligence base underground, Brian gets informed that he is being deployed on one of the most perilous missions ever to exist. His mission: to penetrate a black site of Russia inside Iran- a secret base where ...

  How to Train a Spy by B.W. Leavitt is an exciting espionage novel that gives the reader an uncommon and fascinating character. The novel focuses on Brian Lewis, a correctional officer in the New York State whose life is just like that of many regular Americans: he has a good job, a family, and the daily life with its mundane routine. However, when two federal agents come to question him in the middle of the night, the world of Brian is plunged into the world of secrets, intricacy, and foreign threats. The novel starts with a shocking experience that prefigures all the subsequent things. Baffled and stunned, Brian is taken down to a city and into an undetectable intelligence center. It is here that he is informed of something that will alter his life forever: he has been chosen to take part in a very high-profile mission where he has to train in specifications, keep a secret and complete personal sacrifice. The most interesting element about the story of Brian is that he does...