Once a Spy ... Always a Winner!, February 2, 2010

"Once a Spy" is about a retired CIA black ops man, Drummond Clark, who suffers from Alzheimer's and thus is perceived by his ex-colleagues as a risk to leak their secret of "the device," which is vital to national security. So they conclude that it's for "the greater good" that Drummond have an accident. A fatal one, of course.The only person Drummond can rely on for aid is his estranged son, Charlie, a career underachiever and professional horseplayer who only ever known his father as a dull appliance salesman. Charlie tries to institutionalize Drummond, but before they can get to the nursing home, bullets start flying, and things start blowing up, almost every page.In vivid, lighting-paced chapters that read like scenes from the best action movies, Charlie must solve the mystery of why assassins are trying to kill him and the old washing machine salesman, then develop the spine to do something about it. Drummond, in periodic episodes of lucidity, remembers...

"Once a Spy" starts of at a run. Charlie Clark, 30-ish slacker in general and racetrack gambler, gets a call from a local senior center asking him to pick up his father, who was found wandering the streets of Brooklyn in his pajamas. Charlie is estranged from his father, Drummond Clark, who never paid much attention to him, preferring instead his job as an appliance salesman. When Charlie picks up his father, however, bullets begin to fly, and it soon becomes apparent that Drummond knows as much about espionnage as about appliances, if only his Alzheimers weren't destroying his memory.The foregoing is not a spoiler, since as much can be learned from the book's dust jacket. I was fascinated by the premise, and carried away by the speed of the chase. The story rockets forward in the time-honored manner of Ludlum and his literary descendants, as Drummond and Charlie try to stay alive and find out why so many people are trying to kill Drummond, and now, Charlie as well...

Keith Thomson's debut novel is a rollercoaster of a spy thriller that zips along at a breakneck pace, careening along a sharp track full of twists and turns and peaks and valleys that leave the reader breathless with excitement. What great fun, from the first page to the last, especially for those who are willing to hold on tight and just enjoy the ride!Charlie Clark is an inveterate gambler on a lifetime losing streak who is summoned to a senior citizen's center to arrange for his father's long-term care. It seems as though the elder Clark is suffering from the early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, and passes in and out of awareness. Father and son have never really been close - but they're about to appreciate each other on an entirely new level as it becomes increasingly evident that Dad had a secret career as a master spy, and has now been targeted for elimination due to his faltering memory!Thomson has created two delightful eccentrics in Charlie and...