The Travelers: A Novel

by Chris Pavone

A pulse-racing international thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Expats and The Accident
 
It’s 3:00am. Do you know where your husband is?
 
Meet Will Rhodes: travel writer, recently married, barely solvent, his idealism rapidly giving way to disillusionment and the worry that he’s living the wrong life. Then one night, on assignment for the award-winning Travelers magazine in the wine region of Argentina, a beautiful woman makes him an offer he can’t refuse. Soon Will’s bad choices—and dark secrets—take him across Europe, from a chateau in Bordeaux to a midnight raid on a Paris mansion, from a dive bar in Dublin to a mega-yacht in the Mediterranean and an isolated cabin perched on the rugged cliffs of Iceland. As he’s drawn further into a tangled web of international intrigue, it becomes clear that nothing about Will Rhodes was ever ordinary, that the network of deception ensnaring him is part of an immense and deadly conspiracy with terrifying global implications—and that the people closest to him may pose the greatest threat of all.
 
It’s 3:00am. Your husband has just become a spy.

• ISBN10: 1524763292
• ISBN13: 9781524763299
• Publish Date: 5 June 2018 (first published 8 March 2016)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Crown Publishing Group, Division of Random House Inc
• Format: Paperback (US Tall Rack)
• Pages: 640
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781524763299

Reviews

[viking2917]

For a long time, I've wondered about how to characterize the difference between a spy novel and and a spy thriller. After reading a review copy of Chris Pavone's The Travelers, I think I can now express it precisely. Both have secret agents, intelligence agencies, dead drops, tradecraft, double-crosses and other staples of the genre.

It's all about the plausibility of the events. In a Le Carré novel, everything is completely plausible. No James Bond unrealistic derring-do. No jumping out of airplanes without a parachute. No complete civilians discovering crazy secrets and getting pursued by mysterious strangers. Just real people betraying something or someone, or trying not to.

Which puts Chris Pavone's thoroughly enjoyable The Travelers squarely in the Spy Thriller camp. It has many elements you'd find in Le Carre - skepticism about the nature and motives of Intelligence agencies, a morally grey world view where most everyone is a bad guy of some sort. But most of the book is an adventure, a fun but not very plausible one.

The Travelers' is Pavone's third novel, after The Expats and The Accident. He specializes in "normal" people (who often turn out to be not that normal), getting caught up in intrigues. Will Rhodes is a not-very-sympathetic character - a newly married travel writer with a wandering eye and questionable morals. He's married to Chloe and working for Travelers magazine, with operations around the world and activities that might be more than just writing articles....and Chloe might not be who she seems either...before long Will's made some bad choices, and events hurtle him from New York to Paris to cabins in the forest of Iceland to Ireland to Yachts in the Mediterranean to ...well the book is so peripatetic that the section headers are location names.

If you're looking for a great thriller, The Travelers will keep you entertained for hours. If you're looking for deep insights into the human condition, you might want to head for Le Carré or Graham Greene.

I received a free copy of The Travelers through LibraryThing's wonderful Early Reviewers program.