Title:	The Spy Among Us
	Author:	Thomas Nicholas
	Published:	July 26, 2018, Dog Ear Publishing
	No. of Pages:	238
	Cover Price:	$19.95 Paperback, $4.99 Kindle

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The Spy Among Us, the third novel in the Christi Cole Trilogy by Thomas Nicholas, finds Christie, FBI special agent, assigned to the International Joint Terrorism Task Force. She is sent to Moscow to work undercover; in this case as an accountant in a German travel agency. Her mission is to discover which spy is working from the inside and is responsible for several of their agents being killed. Christie is torn between her regular life with a loving husband and child – she doesn’t want to leave them, but her Russian ties are strong and she is considered the only one who can do the job. During the assignment, she sees an old friend, Russian Army Colonel Pytor Popov, who is powerful and may have the answer she seeks.

There is enough building suspense to keep the reader interested, and the story is unpredictable. Nicholas is a good storyteller. Although Nicholas has law enforcement ties and has knowledge of protocol, the international spying aspect of this novel doesn’t seem to ring true – the characters aren’t careful enough during their mission, and there isn’t a sense of danger and urgency that is an integral part of most international spy novels and what is generally the perceived standard for international spying (at least in novels). It almost makes spying seem like an everyday eight-to-five desk job. Christie’s character is well-developed, and those who have read the previous novels will have an even better sense of her as the protagonist. The other characters, while important to the novel, aren’t developed as well as they could be.

Luckily, there are elements of surprise throughout as well as a surprising dénouement. This novel has a good and interesting story.

Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.