An Expensive Education (2009)
On a covert mission in a Somali village, CIA agent Mike Teak delivers cash and cell phones to Hatashil, a legendary orphan warrior turned rebel leader. It’s a routine assignment until, minutes after they meet, the village is decimated by a missile assault, and although Teak escapes, his life is changed forever. Echoing across continents, this spy novel follows Teak in his deadly struggle to untangle the truth behind the massacre.
“Unerringly entertaining . . . McDonell skips from Washington to Nairobi as easily as he crosses the river between Cambridge and Boston. [His protagonist Teak] is more Holden Caulfield than James Bond: the spy in quarter-life crisis. It’s the juxtaposition of his cold-blooded training and soulful moping that gives the book its charm.” —Charles McGrath, New York Times Book Review
“An Expensive Education blends a terse story of international intrigue with a biting satire of Harvard… Smart and sexy and could be the beginning of a franchise more lucrative than literary fiction.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“McDonell introduces a spy who could have easily walked off the pages of le Carré’s better works.” —Publishers Weekly
“Encompasses global, national, and campus politics, showing the way the biggest agendas are sometimes set on the smallest stages. McDonell writes about hot topics with a cool head, and his riveting novel should fuel an emotional response from readers.” —Booklist (starred review)
“McDonell’s dark, relentlessly readable latest swings back and forth between Harvard and Africa, and in both cases the education is indeed expensive, The 20-something author keeps his smart, ambitious, self-absorbed characters at arm’s-length, doling out understanding and compassion to them while withholding real affection. A novel for the head more than the heart, but so very intelligent that for a certain kind of reader it will be catnip.” —Kirkus Review (starred review)