In Once A Spy Drummond's career as an appliance salesman was actually a cover for an elaborate plan to sell would-be terrorists faulty nuclear weapons.  Drummond's intricate knowledge of the "device" is extremely dangerous information to have rattling around in an Alzheimer's-addled brain. The CIA wants to "contain" him--and so do some other shady characters.

The humor comes in naturally in this book, mostly because the main character just cracks wise a lot.  Thomson says it's his coping mechanism, and the tone seems perfect.  Christopher Reich describes Once A Spy as Carl Hiassen taking on John Le Carré. 

Keith Thomson has been a semi-pro baseball player in France, editorial cartoonist for Newsday, filmmaker with a short at Sundance that won the Napor Award, and a screenwriter. Today he lives in Alabama and he writes about intelligence and other matters for The Huffington Post.  But Thomson doesn't claim to be an expert in intelligence matters, although he has been able to get the facts from the best sources.

"I have come into contact with an array of intelligence community personnel ranging from a National Security Agency temp to a director of the CIA--plus several spies so bright and dashing and heroic that I would guess at least one of them dated my old girlfriend."

Those newspaper pieces are almost always very serious, but the editors at the paper don't seem to mind the flights of fancy in Thomson's new novel.  In fact, The Huffington Post editors liked it enough that they serialized the first 17 chapters on their web site over five installments.  Thomson hopes this exposure will hook his audience, and he knows just who they are.

"I hope fans of thrillers and perhaps the same people who watch TV shows like 24 and action-adventure movies like the Lethal Weapon series will love it," he says.

And we don't have to worry about forgetting Drummond Clark after the satisfying finish of this novel.  The next book, tentatively titled Twice a Spy, should hit bookstores in Spring, 2011.  So you'll want to get in on the ground floor of this promising new series by reading Once A Spy right away.

Austin S. Camacho has written a series about private detective Hannibal Jones and a series of adventure novels featuring mercenary Morgan Stark and jewel thief Felicity O'Brien.  To pay the mortgage he answers media queries for the Defense Department.  Camacho lives in Springfield, Virginia with his lovely wife Denise and Princess the Wonder Cat.