The Tourists by Christopher Reich

Published by Thomas & Mercer on October 14, 2025

Mac Dekker was a field operative (more specifically, an assassin) for the CIA. In Matterhorn, the first novel in this series, “he’d been betrayed by his best friend and made to look like a Russian double agent. Unable to prove his innocence, he’d faked his death and escaped to the village of Zinal in the Swiss Alps.” Dekker’s best friend was a mole who, some years after Dekker’s disappearance, was responsible for the death of Dekker’s son.

Dekker begins the novel in Paris, where he plans to propose to a Mossad agent named Ava Attal. A month earlier, Dekker’s former boss at the CIA, Don Baker, appeared in Zinal and offered Dekker a return to his former status, complete with back pay, a promotion, and nullification of the “red flag” order to kill him on sight. The offer requires him to remain out of sight, avoiding contact with anyone from his former life, apart from his daughter, Jane McCall, who is serving as the CIA’s acting chief of station in Berlin. Dekker is happy with the deal because it gives him the freedom to live wherever he likes and removes his concern that an assassin’s bullet will find him if appears in public.

In Paris, Dekker takes Ava to a restaurant in the Eiffel Tower where he plans to pop the question. Just as he’s about to pull the ring from his pocket, Ava gets a call on her cellphone. She tells Dekker she needs to have a private conversation and disappears into the hallway. When she doesn’t return, Dekker searches the area, then returns to their hotel. Ava isn’t there because (the reader soon learns) she was abducted from the restaurant. Dekker searches her luggage and wonders why she brought a gun on their romantic getaway. Could it be that Ava was on a secret mission?

The story follows Dekker as he searches for Ava with the clandestine help of his daughter. A female assassin makes occasional appearances. She’s after Dekker, whose return to the CIA’s protection is short-lived after he breaks the rules by involving his daughter in his search for Ava. The red flag has been reinstated, another complication in Dekker’s life.

Interwoven with Dekker’s story are scenes involving Tariq bin Nayan bin Tariq al-Sabah, the second son of the emir of Qatar’s first wife. The older son, Jabr, has been groomed to take over when the emir dies. Prince Tariq won’t inherit the throne so he’s dedicated himself to spending money, hooking up with beautiful women, and hobnobbing with the elite. Nice work if you can get it, I suppose. Tariq earns money of his own as a social media influencer. People are apparently fascinated with the myriad ways in which wealthy men can waste their money and the women who sleep with them.

Tariq is orchestrating one of those diabolical plots that are common in modern thrillers. Jabr has negotiated a treaty between Israel and Gulf countries that is supposed to bring prosperity for all. Tariq opposes the treaty, in part because he is jealous of Jabr, in part because he hates Jews. Tariq has made an unholy alliance with Israel’s defense minister, who believes the treaty will undermine Israel’s regional supremacy. This struck me as plausible; other readers might disagree. I'm not sure how many readers value plausibility in a thriller, so perhaps it doesn't matter.

Tariq plans to use a small nuclear weapon that ISIS pilfered from Israel, a nuke that can only be triggered with the right transmitter and codes that only Israel possesses. Tariq’s plan is to kill the participants at an international conference in Paris where the treaty will be signed, killing his brother and securing his position as emir while eliminating any hope of peace between Israel and the Gulf states.

Christopher Reich flavors the novel with regional history, some of which he invents or embellishes in interesting ways. Reich creates detailed histories of key characters. The reader is challenged to decide whether Ava is a good guy or a bad guy, assuming those terms have clear meanings in the Middle East. None of this bogs down a story that moves at a steady (but not frenetic) pace.

Paris is the intersection point between the story of Ava’s abduction and Tariq’s plan to explode a tactical nuke. The mystery of Ava’s abduction is unsurprising but deftly executed. Action scenes at the story’s end require the protagonists to engage in a clichéd race against the clock, but what would thrillers be without those races?

The novel would probably make a decent movie, albeit one that would need to be dumbed down a bit, as political nuances in the story don’t translate well to Hollywood films. I prefer Reich’s financial thrillers because they play to his strengths (he was an investment banker before he started selling novels), but The Tourists is nevertheless a successful espionage novel, one that is consistent in quality with Reich’s body of work.

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