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
external conflicts,” says Leavitt. “I wanted to
explore the internal war, a person’s
fight to hold on to their humanity in an
environment designed to erase it.”
The emotional core of the book is in
Brian's interactions with his wife and children.
Their last holiday together, staged as
a sendoff, torments the story. Brian grapples
with notions of home in defiance of
his teachers' attempts to release him from it
all. His internal narrative is as
tense and compelling as the clandestine activities
he performs later. This psychological
vision distinguishes How to Train a Spy from run-of the-mill thrillers. It's a novel
that's as much about identity collapse as it is about global
intrigue. With governments fiddling
with brain implants, behavior conditioning,
and electronic espionage these days,
Leavitt's vision proves uncomfortably close.
Available on Amazon, How to Train a
Spy will resonate with fans of literary
thrillers and readers fascinated by
the human cost of secrecy.
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