“The Cairo Affair” by Olen Steinhauer – A Dead Man's Story

The Cairo Affair by Olen Steinhauer is certainly not your typical thriller, being more of a postmortem investigation led by multiple people in different countries, each with their own reasons for doing so.

The real “protagonist” of this whole affair is Emmett Kohl, an American diplomat who was suddenly murdered while dining in a restaurant in Hungary. As the investigation around this tragic event starts to unfold, it becomes clear that there was no shortage of people out there who would have preferred to see Emmett with the dead rather than the living.

Perhaps his death had something to do with the love affair his wife had in Cairo? Or perhaps was it related to his rather exclusive knowledge about an aborted CIA op? Or has something he got embroiled in deep in his past finally caught up to him?

Rather than a thriller, I would truly prefer to classify this as a murder mystery, one that takes a somewhat fresh and very welcome approach to the genre, showing the investigation from the point of view of multiple characters.

We get to see how this one event had repercussions all around the world, with Kohl's wife vying for the truth, alongside Egyptian agents like Omar Halawi, CIA operators such as Stan Bertolli, and an American analyst by the name of Jibril Aziz.

Of course, I am aware this is not the first time this approach is taken, but nevertheless, it is personally one of my favorite ones, allowing us to see every side to this story, and believe me, there are many to this one.

Steinhauer does a rather good job at differentiating between the characters, with the leaps from one setting to the other being done rather painlessly, at least for the most part. I will admit that the jumping back and forth in time was confusing at first, but as is the case with most novels which do that, you end up getting rather used to it.

The writing in this novel is rather calm and methodical, with the pace being a slower and more enjoyable one, the kind that lets you think things through and let ideas sink in before you move on leisurely at your own pace.

There aren't really any things in here that will make your heart go racing, but rather, it is filled with different twists and turns that will keep your attention and pique your curiosity. It is a very leisurely read you can get lost in and travel around the world, even if only inside your own mind.

One of my favorite aspects about this novel was the way in which the espionage was portrayed. The sensationalism was really kept to a minimum, and the emphasis was basically placed on the complex chess game that it is, with the opponents always trying to be one step ahead of each other, to outsmart the other and claim the upper hand. In other words, this kind of espionage involves much less legwork and a lot more brain work.

All in all, The Cairo Affair is, in my opinion, one of the more enthralling and relaxing murder mystery/thriller novels available out there, and anyone who is looking for a more relaxed approach to the genre will probably take very well to this book, provided that, of course, you don't expect anything groundbreaking from it.

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Olen Steinhauer Personal site Olen Steinhauer is an American writer whose main forte are spy fiction novels. The Tourist is perhaps one of his better-known works, having found its way into the prestigious New York Times Best Sellers list. So far, his only standalone novel not part of The Yalta Boulevard Sequence or The Milo Weaver Trilogy is The Cairo Affair.