The English Teacher

Former Israeli intelligence officer Reichter Atir makes his U.S. debut with this absorbing thriller. After Rachel Goldschmitt, a retired Mossad agent living in London, leaves a cryptic phone message with her former handler, known only as Ehud, she disappears. Fearful that Rachael may be unstable and reveal classified information, Mossad assigns Ehud to track her down. What follows is a fascinating look at Rachel’s undercover career in the Arab world as an unassuming English teacher by day, spy by night. Flashbacks chronicle the decade Rachel spent undercover, from her first assassination—an awkward but brutally swift affair in a hotel elevator—to the conflict she faces when she falls in love with an Arab man who knows her only as the sweet English teacher with the British accent. Along the way, readers are treated to all the granular frustrations, mundane indignities, and utter loneliness that can accompany undercover work, details rarely covered in most tales of espionage. Agent: Deborah Harris, Deborah Harris Agency. (Aug.)