A Spy By Nature Charles Cumming St. Martin's ISBN 0-312-36635-3 $24.95 / 368 pages July

Alec Milius is working at a just barely legal job. He's alienated one of the female employees there by sleeping with her and then breaking up. After two years he's not over the big love of his life and all his friends are making more money than he is. In short, he's twenty four and at loose ends. On a visit to his mother, a family friend suggests he try the Foreign Office. He soon finds he's being offered a chance to join MI-5.

A Spy By Nature is full of lies, rationalizations, double crosses, paranoia, insomnia, tension, and increasing drama. It's obviously an espionage novel of high rank. Charles Cumming puts his reader into the mind of Alec and by doing so gives us a vivid picture of the modern day spy. A Spy by Nature is quite the debut novel. For the reader seeking authenticity in plot, like Alec, Mr. Cumming was approached by the SIS and served a stint with them. For the reader seeking something popular, the film rights have already been sold to the producers of the BBC show Spooks. A must summer read.

Dave Biemann