Published by Viking on January 10, 2012
“It’s as though Matt Damon really were Jason Bourne” says one of the characters in The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen. That pretty well sums up the plot.
The novel begins with the shooting of a banker by a credit card holder who is understandably miffed by the bank’s unconscionable 30 percent interest rate. The true motivation for the murder remains a mystery while the rest of the story unfolds. The plot is standard James Bond fare: the theft and sale of nuclear weaponry must be thwarted. This time the thief is an American providing disarmament expertise and assistance to the Russian government. Thomas Caplan deserves credit for designing an interesting plan to steal the nuclear material that appears to be credible (having no such expertise of my own, I don’t know if the plan is realistic or sound, but I had no trouble accepting it at face value). The bad guys are a banker turned diplomat named Philip Frost and a wealthy but unscrupulous financial wizard named Ian Santal. The good guy is a military intelligence officer turned superstar actor named Ty Hunter. Unlikely though it may seem, the president himself recruits Hunter to spy upon Frost and Santal.
Early on, the novel compares Hunter’s lodgings to those that might be favored by Sean Connery or Cary Grant. Hunter is clearly in that mold: sophisticated, good looking, charming while remaining a bit aloof. He is, of course, irresistible to women, except (initially) for Isabella Cavill, the elusive romantic interest he can’t have and therefore desires (he has a similar experience with the “very delicious” Maria Antonia Salazar). Sadly, characters crafted from a mold tend to be unoriginal, unimaginative, and uninteresting, all adjectives that apply to Ty Hunter. The other characters are equally bereft of personality.
The plot is somewhat more entertaining than the shallow characters who propel it. Caplan is either well-traveled or good at faking it; as Hunter bounces around the globe, Caplan’s descriptions of terrain, customs, and local libations add color to the story. There isn’t much in the way of intrigue or suspense: Caplan tends to tell the reader what the bad guys are doing (and why) as they’re doing it, shortly before the good guys intuit the answers on the basis of scant information. This leaves little room for the reader’s imagination to exercise. Fortunately, the story becomes more interesting as it progresses, becoming moderately engaging as it moves into the home stretch. Unfortunately, it culminates in a surprisingly dull ending.
Caplan’s writing style is serviceable if sometimes ponderous. Dialog is occasionally stilted and often banal (a screenwriter will need to step in and smooth it out when the book is filmed -- and it practically screams “film me!”). Romantic scenes are sappy. At least initially, the pace is slow for a thriller/spy novel. It’s never dull but it doesn’t begin to sizzle until the second half. Even then, action scenes are lackluster; they read as if they were copied from a tae kwon do training manual. Characters engage in unrealistically glib conversations while trying to escape from explosions and fires.
The conclusion seems to set up another novel featuring Ty Hunter and some of his supporting cast. If Caplan writes it, I intend to skip it. The Spy Who Jumped Off the Screen isn’t wholly unlikeable but it didn’t leave me in eager anticipation of its sequel.
RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS