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The Expats

by Chris Pavone (Goodreads Author)

3.41 of 5 stars 3.41 · rating details · 9,050 ratings · 1,691 reviews

Kate Moore is a working mother, struggling to make ends meet, to raise children, to keep a spark in her marriage . . . and to maintain an increasingly unbearable life-defining secret. So when her husband is offered a lucrative job in Luxembourg, she jumps at the chance to leave behind her double-life, to start anew.

She begins to reinvent herself as an expat, finding her wa...more

Hardcover, 326 pages

Published March 6th 2012 by Crown (first published 2012)

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Apr 21, 2012 Jeanette rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: all-fiction, europe-and-british-isles, domestic-and-relationship-fiction, suspense-thriller

I don't know how to say "lukewarm" in Luxembourgish, but that was my response to the book. The story has a lot of structural problems that could have been cleared up with aggressive editing. Part I is a complete mess structurally, changing venues and time frames every page or two, sometimes every couple of paragraphs. This makes it hard to follow and keep track of the people and narrative pathways. It does smooth out later in the book, but is still in need of reorganization.

Chris Pavone had an...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Bonnie E. rated it 2 of 5 stars

I was excited to read this book given all the good press which it had received. And I had not read a top notch spy novel in quite some time. By the time I finished this book, however, I concluded that I had read a good spy novel but not a very compelling one.

First of all, the story was written through the eyes of Kat (or Kate), a former CIA agent who quits her career and moves to Luxembourg with her husband and two small children. She then begins to discover that her husband is not entirely wha...more

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Jan 22, 2013 Audra (Unabridged Chick) rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: era-contemporary, formulaic, place-europe, secret-identities, skeletons-in-the-closet, unfinished, yawn

I suppose it's inevitable that my streak of winning reads comes to an end. Sadly, this thriller just didn't catch my interest and I DNF'd at 103 pages after many fits and starts.

Essentially, American Kate moves to Luxembourg when her husband gets a lucrative job working with the banks there. As she is having professional angst, the move gives her an out. In Luxembourg, however, things aren't as they should be, stuff from the past shows up, secrets secrets secrets, etc. (I'm fuzzy on what the end...more I suppose it's inevitable that my streak of winning reads comes to an end. Sadly, this thriller just didn't catch my interest and I DNF'd at 103 pages after many fits and starts.

Essentially, American Kate moves to Luxembourg when her husband gets a lucrative job working with the banks there. As she is having professional angst, the move gives her an out. In Luxembourg, however, things aren't as they should be, stuff from the past shows up, secrets secrets secrets, etc. (I'm fuzzy on what the end is, of course, having not finished this book. But that's my guess.)

For me, the problem was our heroine, Kate Moore. And it's not her fault, I think -- I just really hated how Pavone wrote her. What late 30ish woman giggles when her husband scratches her palm to indicate his desire for sex? (And why can't he just flirt or make a pass like any other person? Every time Pavone had him hold Kate's hand, I wanted to shake it off to avoid weird palm scratching.) A woman who asserts constantly how much her husband needs her (lady doth protest too much, of course!), she makes a big deal about taking her husband's surname and giving herself a cute nickname when they move. If anyone is needy in this marriage, my bet is on Kate.

Despite her professional background (and we learn pretty quickly she's supposed to be a bad ass), Kate walks around oddly insecure, pathetic at moments. Pavone trots out the existential angst how-did-I-get-here housewife trope, which I'm so very sick of in commercial fiction. (I get waking up some mornings and wishing one was 25 again and all that jazz, but when our heroine moves in this fog every day and I'm not reading Betty Friedan or Sylvia Plath, I want her on antidepressants and at talk therapy.) In the interest of avoiding spoiling any of the story, I won't say more than this: I really hate it when characters are all, 'oh, I can't do X because it will reveal all the truths about me' when X is saving one's self, acting competently, and/or have a rational response.

As I said, I gave up at about 100 pages in (of a 300 page book), still wondering where the thriller tension would kick in. I had an idea about what the plot points were going to be based on all the hints Pavone was laying out, although 100 pages in, things were still pretty fuzzy. His narrative style is jumpy: the story is split between now and two years ago, and buried in the two-year old sections are memories and events from Kate's past. It felt a bit jumbled and confusing.

I suppose I was warned: The New York Times blurb includes this telling tidbit: "The tireless scheming of all four principals truly exceeds all sane expectations." I didn't get that far, but what I saw felt pretty nonsensical.

My GoodReads feed has a number of three to five star ratings for this book, so don't take my opinion solely; be sure to check out the others on the tour as well for more opinions!(less)

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Jun 18, 2012 Larissa rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: thriller, vicarious-travel, crime-fiction, read-while-traveling, e-read, 2012

I was looking for a fast, fun read for a vacation that I took recently took and when The Expats (which, incidentally, was just listed as one of Bill Ott's 'Best Crime Novels: 2012' in Booklist) caught my eye, I thought it would easily fit the bill. But this book was pretty much a disappointment from start to finish. The set-up is promising, but the whole novel is sloppily structured and written and the conclusion is not only silly, it's also pretty lazy on the resolving details. (For instance, "...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Maureen rated it 1 of 5 stars

This book is a perfect example of why I do not put any stock into the endorsements on the book jacket from other authors. The book jacket for this novel has glowing quotes from John Grisham and Patricia Cornwell among others. After reading this book I am convinced that these quotes are just paid for endorsements without the author really reading this book because this book was horrible. It was boring, the writing was pedestrian, the characters were one dimensional, and there was zero suspense. T...more

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Sep 16, 2012 Matthew Lerner rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2012-book-club

Unfortunately, I didn't love it. The Expats came highly recommended and sounded like a great story. Such potential!

In a nutshell, the heroine of Chris Pavone's book, Kate, vacates her seemingly happy life in Washington, D.C. and travels oversees to start anew with her husband and two children (two boys who, although underutilized, became my favorite characters). Ultimately, Kate, (SPOILER!) an ex-CIA agent, uncovers life-altering secrets about her husband and his surreptitious work abroad. The...more

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May 10, 2013 Clint Cypert rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, spy-thriller, thriller

This was a very fun book to read. Chris Pavone captured my interest early on in this novel and kept my interest until the end. The Expats follows the story of Kate Moore, who is a former CIA employee. She quits her job to move to Luxembourg after her husband accepts a job there. Things go well at first for the Moores, but then their past comes back to haunt them. I am not sure how I felt about the ending, but it was a very entertaining read. The novel alternates between the past and present, as...more

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Mar 27, 2012 Pamela rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads

I received this book as a Firstreads novel and I'm so glad I was given the opportunity to read it. As an Expat myself, I was especially intrigued by the parallels I could draw with the author having myself spent 2 years in the Netherlands. The descriptions of Amsterdam and the Dutch were spot-on! Down to the minutest detail...it was neat to read that the author's first impressions of the canals, the cobblestoned streets, the parking procedures...equalled ours. To quote a paragraph from the book:...more I received this book as a Firstreads novel and I'm so glad I was given the opportunity to read it. As an Expat myself, I was especially intrigued by the parallels I could draw with the author having myself spent 2 years in the Netherlands. The descriptions of Amsterdam and the Dutch were spot-on! Down to the minutest detail...it was neat to read that the author's first impressions of the canals, the cobblestoned streets, the parking procedures...equalled ours. To quote a paragraph from the book:

"The canals of Amsterdam shimmered in the cold night, the water forming a rippling blanket of pinpoints of light, reflections from the streetlamps, restaurants, bars, houses. All the houses' blinds were undrawn, curtains open, people sitting in their living and dining rooms, reading the newspaper or drinking a glass of wine, family gathered around the dinner table, children watching television, all if it on display to neighbors, to strangers, to the world."

BRAVO! I couldn't have described it better myself. Not to mention, when our friends ask us about what was noteworthy about living in the Netherlands we usually reply, "It's like living in the land of 6 ft. blond-haired, blue-eyed giants who all own and ride a bike, smoke fags, and never draw their bay window curtains in the evenings...it was like living in a fish bowl!" I swear, we were the only ones who drew our curtains once dusk came in the evening.

Right off, the author begins to weave a story that will slowly unravel as it is being knit. We are introduced to Kate and Dexter who are preparing to make a transfer to Luxembourg due to Dexter's employer. Little do we know at that time of the double lives both Kate and Dexter are living...and the secrets they each are hiding from each other. As the story unfolds, look out...you just might slide off your seat! WONDERFUL suspense, mystery and intrigue that will leave your brain thinking about the WHO dun it's and the WHO'S involved....and STILL...the ending will leave you gasping in surprise! I thought I had it all figured out until the very last pages and then....Oh MY GOSH!

I loved to read about Kate's difficulty adjusting to the routines of living in a new country and being the Expat. The language difference, the difficulty finding and then relying on new friends who on any normal day you wouldn't EVER hang out with, the day to day monotony of finding your way around a new city and culture, having a husband working long and torturous hours while YOU are spending hours alone "handling" the household affairs including the moving and unpacking and decorating and putting together of the IKEA furniture that replaces the rentals you have while waiting for your shipment to arrive....then the moving and unpacking and decorating and putting together all of your stuff from the shipment. All of this ALONE...while at the same time discovering you really are handy with the screwdriver and that book of directions for the bureau you just built is your badge of honor for the day. PHEW! Now, lets add 2 rambunctious boys to that busy mother and you have Kate...who like most of us Expat wives and mothers, now newly joined the "club" pulls on the bootstraps of her new life and struggles to make sense of her SELF, her MARRIAGE, her LIFE in another country.

Add to that impossible mix the fact that Kate is an ex-CIA operative with a past that still haunts her...and you have one exciting, riveting, thriller of a story which will not disappoint you in the ending.

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Sep 09, 2012 Julia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Kate is a CIA agent who has always kept the true story of what she does a secret from her husband, Dexter. When he receives a job offer from a bank in Luxembourg, it seems the right time to leave her job, enjoy spending time with her young children and get to know Europe. Adapting to life as an expat in Luxembourg isn't always easy. Her husband works long hours, she struggles with the language barriers and the tedium of everyday life. When she meets a fellow American expat, Julia, she initially...more

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Feb 11, 2013 Richard rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who likes thrillers; stories with unrevealed secrets.

Recommended to Richard by: I read a review.

For all those who have read this and had a hard time knowing when the action was taking place, I would suggest you look at the top of the first page of that chapter to see if it says 'Today' and a time, or 'Two years earlier', it is some time that fills in the story line. That's the nice thing about real books; you can turn the pages back and look.

Yes, the tale flips around. Have you seen a movie in the past 40 plus years? There are usually some quick cuts of changes in scene or point of view. V...more

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May 28, 2012 Mercedes Brennan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was well written AND a page turner. Don't you love that? It falls into the spy thriller genre. I also loved the ex-pat context, having lived that life myself and remembering....

7 likes · like · see review

Nov 12, 2011 Tony rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

Presumably the main purpose of a thriller is to provide thrills -- unfortunately, this one does not. I have no earthly idea why John Grisham's blurb compares it to "the early works of Ken Follett, Frederick Forsyth, and Robert Ludlum" because not only is it not in the same league, it's not in the same sport. Christopher Reich's blurb makes the claim that the book is a "jet-fueled story that rockets from one corner of the globe to another." This is curious characterization of a book where the act...more Presumably the main purpose of a thriller is to provide thrills -- unfortunately, this one does not. I have no earthly idea why John Grisham's blurb compares it to "the early works of Ken Follett, Frederick Forsyth, and Robert Ludlum" because not only is it not in the same league, it's not in the same sport. Christopher Reich's blurb makes the claim that the book is a "jet-fueled story that rockets from one corner of the globe to another." This is curious characterization of a book where the action almost entirely takes place in Luxembourg, France, and Switzerland, with the occasional flashback to Washington, D.C. and New York and occasional weekend trip to various other European cities. And it is anything but "jet-fueled," -- quite the opposite: it is slow and plodding to a deadly degree.

The story concerns a middle-class married couple (Kate and Dexter) with two kids who move to Luxembourg as a result of a job opportunity for the husband. This gives Kate the opportunity to quit her work as a CIA agent and settle into a new life as an expat housewife without ever having to reveal her secret professional life to Dexter. Of course, it goes without saying that Dexter harbors a secret or two himself (shades of that tepid Brangelina movie Mr. and Mrs. Smith). Their story flips back and forth between the present, and two years previously. In the present, they are living in France and Kate runs into a friend from Luxembourg who is not really a friend, but some kind of agent sent to track her and Dexter down. The "two years ago" sections are the bulk of the book, and detail the family's move to Europe, and the gradual revelations of truth that eventually tie into the present. It's a clunky narrative method, with the two timelines cut and pasted back and forth in a vain attempt to create some kind of narrative tension.

Unfortunately, most readers will have a reasonably good idea of Dexter's revelation is going to be, so we're left waiting, and waiting, and waiting...for Kate to catch up. Meanwhile, we roll around in Kate's head as she struggles to figure out her new life and her husband's odd job. There are some nice moments when we see Kate struggling with her deception, and trying to convince herself to tell Dexter about herself and what she knows about him. But even that is just a typical portrayal of a marital deception writ large. There are a few scenes here and there that unfold quite nicely, for example, a gathering of ex-pat mothers having coffee and babbling about nothing, or Kate's acquisition of a gun from a Scottish pimp in a brief trip to Amsterdam.

However it's not until the very end of the book that the deceptions start to fall away and the action picks up, and Kate and Dexter confront the other's secret side, and have to work together. Only then can a very elaborate David Mamet-like con artist plot start to unfold. This is all reasonably nifty, but even here, the two timelines create a narrative choppiness that slows the pace down. In the end, the whole enterprise felt rather thin and artificial, which left me thinking that this might be the kind of book that is actually better as a slick Hollywood film. I wouldn't be surprised if we get the chance to find out in about three years.

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Apr 04, 2013 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book was, quite simply, a blast. I borrowed it from a friend because I desperately needed a break from dense, dark historical fiction set in Asia (who do we know who writes that?) and this was absolutely the ticket--a spy story set in Luxembourg and Paris, featuring a bored housewife who is also a super-secret spy with amazing martial arts skills and a hidden secret in her past. It was also very, very funny--I found myself guffawing over the spot-on descriptions of over-privileged banking w...more

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Mar 15, 2013 Sean rated it 2 of 5 stars

I have to give the author credit: the story sucked me in and I had to finish it just to find out how it ended. Alas, there are many problems with this novel, including:

1. The main character, to be blunt, is an idiot. There is no way such a person could be in covert operations for the CIA. It was clear as could be what her husband was doing, and it took forever for the main character to do basic research that anyone with any intelligence would have immediately done.

2. On a related note, this nove...more

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Mar 03, 2013 Lazy Linesman rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sum it up in a sentence:

Kate Moores, an ex-CIA operative, moves with her husband and children to his new job in Luxembourg, but though she tries to leave her past behind she finds herself very suspicious of another expat couple who seem to have a hidden agenda with her.

What I liked:

Unlike a lot of thrillers I've read, the conclusion to 'The Expats' doesn't feel at all rushed which, for me, is a significant achievement. Some of the revelations seem a touch far-fetched, but that's far from unique...more

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Mar 01, 2013 Hilary rated it 5 of 5 stars

I loved loved loved loved this book! I felt like it was one of the best ones I have read in so long!

I actually found this book in my apartment building, so I had no idea what to expect since I didn't go searching it out; but one I found it I thought, why not?

I was so involved with the story - a CIA agent that has hid her job from everyone - all her friends and family (which is weird because on Homeland everyone knows that Claire Danes is CIA, ha ha) and she keeps plugging along at her life. Whe...more

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Feb 23, 2013 TwoDrinks rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2013

Really enjoyed this. Lost the plot a bit at the end but found I was able to guess bits of the plot early on in the story which was nice as I felt like the author wasn't trying to be a smart arse by making the plot completely impenetrable.

I did find the switching timeline a bit confusing. It was helped by being in a different typeface but my memory is not good enough to have remembered what happened in the previous section. I had the same problem with The Time Traveller's Wife.

p.318 - 'They agr...more

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Feb 07, 2013 Luanne Ollivier rated it 3 of 5 stars

3.5/5
Chris Pavone's debut novel The Expats has been nominated for an Edgar Award - Best First Novel. And with good reason - it's a real page turner.

Kate Moore has a secret - she's worked for the CIA since she left college. Along the way, she decided she wanted a family and married Dexter. Nice, safe, comfortable Dexter - of course she fully investigated him. And they've been blessed with two little boys. When Dexter gets a job offer in Luxembourg as a banking security specialist, Kate decides i...more 3.5/5
Chris Pavone's debut novel The Expats has been nominated for an Edgar Award - Best First Novel. And with good reason - it's a real page turner.

Kate Moore has a secret - she's worked for the CIA since she left college. Along the way, she decided she wanted a family and married Dexter. Nice, safe, comfortable Dexter - of course she fully investigated him. And they've been blessed with two little boys. When Dexter gets a job offer in Luxembourg as a banking security specialist, Kate decides it's finally time to quit and just be a mom and wife. But can one really ever leave that kind of life behind? Will the past let you quit? And is your husband really who you thought he was?

Kate joins the ranks of the expats in Luxembourg, trying to learn the language, navigate a new country and deal with the loneliness - Dexter's job keeps is keeping him away from home more and more. For a male writer, I thought Pavone nailed Kate's emotions - the boredom, the frustration, the loneliness, the uncertainty that she's made the right choice. But old habits die hard and Kate finds herself second guessing everyone she comes into contact with.

Secrets is the name of the game here - everyone has them and the winner is the one who can figure them out first. Pavone certainly keeps the reader on their toes. He's chosen to tell the story in two narratives - past and present. Different typefaces help us distinguish which is which, but I will admit that I had difficulty in the beginning. In the present day narratives, we (mostly) know what has happened. Switching back to the past, we know more that Kate does as she tries to figure things out. But we still don't know it all - Pavone provides lots of twists to keep the story moving.

I enjoyed having a woman as a protagonist in a 'spy' novel and I liked Kate as a character. There were a few times when an obvious clue seemed to elude her that I thought was out of character, but this is a minor complaint.

The Ex-Pats was an excellent cat and mouse game, with the roles changing constantly between four main players. I can see this as a movie.(less)

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Feb 01, 2013 Lori L (She Treads Softly) rated it 5 of 5 stars

In The Expats by Chris Pavone we are given delicious clues right from the start that Kate Moore is more than she seems. When Kate's husband, Dexter, is offered a lucrative position with an unnamed bank in Luxembourg, Kate quits her job in Washington D.C., the details of which (she's CIA) she never totally explained to Dexter, and they decide to pack up their sons and become expats, Americans living and working abroad.

While Kate thinks, at first, that she is leaving her double life behind to co...more In The Expats by Chris Pavone we are given delicious clues right from the start that Kate Moore is more than she seems. When Kate's husband, Dexter, is offered a lucrative position with an unnamed bank in Luxembourg, Kate quits her job in Washington D.C., the details of which (she's CIA) she never totally explained to Dexter, and they decide to pack up their sons and become expats, Americans living and working abroad.

While Kate thinks, at first, that she is leaving her double life behind to concentrate on being a wife and mother, it soon becomes clear that she has developed some skills that could still be useful to her since everything in Luxembourg may not be quite what it seems to be. Dexter is becoming increasingly distant and might be hiding something from her. And then there is a couple they have met who don't seem to be who they claim they are.

As the tension slowly begins to build, clues foreshadow that there is much more to the story: "Much later, Kate realized that Chicago should have been her first clue. (page 48)." The Expats is full of clues and hints like this of much more to come... and the secrets, all the secrets and half-truths being hidden from others..

In fact, this stylish and cerebral espionage novel is about secrets, people keeping secrets wrapped up in other secrets. It's not a novel full of violent gun battles and fight scenes. Instead it is an intelligent novel where we are allowed glimpses and tantalizing clues of what might be the real truth, only to have these new revelations dashed aside as new clues are revealed. This is a long-con (and as a Lost fan, I appreciate a great long-con story.)

The writing was superb. The narrative alternates between the present and the past, both in chronological order, giving us clues and information slowly and subtly. This really makes for a complex, cleverly plotted novel. I started The Expats and could hardly set it down. At page 250 if I didn't have an early meeting the next morning, I would have been sorely tempted to stay up way-too-late to finish this novel, something I really can't say very often anymore.

I thought Chris Pavone did a tremendous job developing Kate's character and taking us along as we slowly learned what was really going on. While there have been some complaints about the ending, I thought it was great, full of unanticipated twists, and perfectly fit the whole tone of the novel.

Very Highly Recommended - I thoroughly enjoyed this novel!

Disclosure: I received an advanced reading copy of this book from Crown Publishing Group and TLC for review purposes. (less)

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Jan 31, 2013 Diane rated it 4 of 5 stars

I was watching Bob Schieffer on CBS News' Face the Nation, and as his guests he had four authors who had written books that he had recently enjoyed. One of them was Chris Pavone, who had written a spy thriller, The Expats.

Pavone said that his inspiration came when his family moved to Europe for his wife's job and he became a full-time dad. I had heard of the book, but Shieffer's enthusiasm and Pavone's description convinced me to put it on my TBR list.

Kate Moore is a CIA agent married to Dexter...more I was watching Bob Schieffer on CBS News' Face the Nation, and as his guests he had four authors who had written books that he had recently enjoyed. One of them was Chris Pavone, who had written a spy thriller, The Expats.

Pavone said that his inspiration came when his family moved to Europe for his wife's job and he became a full-time dad. I had heard of the book, but Shieffer's enthusiasm and Pavone's description convinced me to put it on my TBR list.

Kate Moore is a CIA agent married to Dexter, a nerdy computer geek who works in banking security. Kate worked in the field for the CIA and we discover that she is more than an analyst; she was field agent who killed people. Her husband knows nothing of this, and thinks she writes position papers for the government.

So when Dexter comes home and tells Kate that he has a fantastic opportunity in Luxembourg. Kate quits her job, (no easy task) and off they go with their two young sons in tow. Kate makes friends with other expats, and she and Dexter become close friends with Julia and Bill.

Kate begins to become suspicious of the couple. Is it because she worked for the CIA that she harbors the idea that Julia and Bill are perhaps assassins? She contacts someone she knew in the CIA and puts her spy skills to the test to find out what is going on.

Meanwhile, Dexter is working longer hours and spending little time with the family. Their marriage is strained and soon Kate is snooping on her husband wondering what he is doing. Is he cheating on her? Is he involved in something illegal?

Pavone expertly unravels his story slowly, going between the present day in Paris and their time in Luxembourg, yet the story feels so fast-paced. This is a story that you will zip through to find out what is going on, yet at the same time you want to savor the writing and the relationship between Kate and Dexter.

I enjoyed being dropped into Luxembourg, watching Kate find her way becoming a full-time mom. Pavone brilliantly compares marriage to the spy game, intimating that people in a marriage may not really know their spouse as well as they think they do. I guarantee you that after reading this terrific novel, you will look a little closer at your spouse.

There is a nail-biting action and interaction between Kate and Julia, and between Kate and Dexter. As the story reaches it's crazy climax, I found I had to slow down reading in order to understand exactly what the heck was going on. There are double-and-triple crosses, tables become turned again and again and at the end, I'm still not completely sure what the heck happened.

This is a book that will appeal to John Grisham fans, although I like this better than I like most Grisham novels. Pavone combines heart-pounding action with fascinating characters, and I read it in two sittings. This is a very cinematic book, I'd love to see it onscreen, and I hope to read more of Kate's future adventures.
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Dec 31, 2012 Janet rated it 4 of 5 stars

Debut novelist Chris Pavone shows remarkable skill in plotting and in cranking up hardcore suspense in this tight, well-written thriller set in an unremarkable corner of Europe. Kate quits her stressful inside-the-beltway job so that Dexter, her husband, can take an assignment in Luxembourg, one of the world’s money belts where just about everyone is involved, legally or otherwise, in banking and finance. Life is good, if not a tad boring for Kate, who spends her days cooking, housekeeping and c...more

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Dec 30, 2012 Lambert Nagle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Like many a debut novel, The Expats is not without its flaws. It gets off to a slow start, so slow in fact that had I not got this for 20p on Kindle, I may well have given up.

As a serial expat myself and someone who has worked helping other expats readjust to their new life, Kate comes across as a relocation consultant's worst nightmare – a whiny, trailing spouse with way too much time on her hands.

I found the characters very unlikeable and I couldn’t understand why Kate just didn't call it a...more

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Oct 20, 2012 Seema rated it 4 of 5 stars

Pretty good. Nicely written, thoughtful heroine and an interesting story with complex satisfying plot. I would have enjoyed it a lot more without the jumping back and forth in time, which was a distraction and confusing. Who really keeps track of the date and time listed for each chapter and tracks the chronological order of each chapter over 700+ pages? If the author expects his readers to jot down the chronology so as to piece the plot together, he expects too much.

The descriptions sometimes g...more

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Sep 21, 2012 Laurie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 52-in-52-2012

Expats is a fun, quick read. When I picked the book up, I didn't understand that it was a spy novel, so I had no expectations other than to let the story unfold. Having recently moved back to the US after an almost three year stint as an expat in the Benelux region, I found Chris Pavone's description of the area and aspects of the lifestyle rang true. Pavone's narrative switches between a current point of view and past recollections of the main character. Although a change in typeface helps the...more

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Sep 13, 2012 Wendy rated it 4 of 5 stars

I don't read spy novels, generally, although I like thrillers at the movies. Something about Ludlum et al leaves me cold. This book was much more approachable for me.

First, unlike many reviewers, I love a book that skips back and forth in time. It adds a layer of complexity to the unravelling, instead of just laying it all out for you in order. I was actually thinking that the book would lose something if translated into film, because some of the time-jumping would no longer work--you'd recogni...more

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Aug 14, 2012 Ayushman Pershad rated it 4 of 5 stars

Chris Pavone is a new author on the block and he is definitely here to stay which is evident from his 1st novel -THE EXPATS. This one is an impressive thriller by him. Kate Moore is a working mother , struggling to make ends meet , to raise children, to keep a spark in her marriage .....and to maintain an increasingly unbreakable life - defining secret. So when her husband is offered a lucrative job in Luxembourg, she jumps at the chance to leave behind her double - life , to start anew .

She be...more

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Aug 09, 2012 Nancy Brisson rated it 3 of 5 stars

What’s going on at Cornell University? Everything, apparently. Cornell has been on my radar so many times lately and in fields as diverse as literature, ornithology, and endeavors in space. This time I just finished the first novel by a guy who grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from Cornell, Chris Pavone. The novel is called The Expats and it’s a doozy. It has spy action and it involves a complicated con game. It’s sort of Spy v. Spy and The Sting all rolled into one.

Kate and Dexter move from Wa...more What’s going on at Cornell University? Everything, apparently. Cornell has been on my radar so many times lately and in fields as diverse as literature, ornithology, and endeavors in space. This time I just finished the first novel by a guy who grew up in Brooklyn and graduated from Cornell, Chris Pavone. The novel is called The Expats and it’s a doozy. It has spy action and it involves a complicated con game. It’s sort of Spy v. Spy and The Sting all rolled into one.

Kate and Dexter move from Washington, DC to Luxembourg because Dexter has a new job helping banks make their computers secure from hackers. Kate, who has worked as a CIA agent for years and who has kept this and many other facts from her husband, quits her job to move with him. Their marriage is intact, they have two great boys, but it is a suffering a bit from the number of secrets that these two are keeping from each other. How toxic are secrets in a relationship? I suppose it depends on the secrets. This is not the main point of the novel, but it’s there and it’s interesting to think about. Is absolute honesty required?

The book also deals with the issues involved in being an expat (the author did live in Luxembourg for a time) when you don’t know the language, and you have no feeling for the geography of the city you decide to live in, and you leave your support system, your friends and your family behind. It makes everything in your life harder to deal with but also new and exciting. Mr. Pavone doesn’t make living abroad seem easy, but he makes it tempting.

Kate starts having a lot of questions, especially with all this time on her hands, and all the housekeeping she is suddenly doing and all the times her husband is coming home late in the evenings and all of the traveling he is doing on weekends. Never give the mind of a woman who worked at the CIA time to wander or she will unearth your deepest darkest secrets.

Test yourself. Can you figure out this twisted tale before it is revealed in the final chapters?
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Aug 05, 2012 Sheila rated it 3 of 5 stars

Kate Moore is a CIA agent who has never told her husband the truth about her job. She is married with two children and now works in a more sedate position in the agency. They are struggling to make ends meet, her husband, Dexter is a computer wizard. He recieves a lucraative position in Luxenburg, this new opportunity gives her a reason to quit her boring job and the potential to make lots of money. She joins a group of women, all from various parts of the world who live in a foreign land, tryin...more

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Jul 17, 2012 Maura rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: all my friends and family

Chris Pavone lives with his family in Lichtenstien and decides to set a suspense novel there with forays of the story into all the major capitals surrounding the Grand Duchy. His suspenseful tale about Kate Moore is part Jason Bourne Identity thriller and part description of a how the mind of a trained CIA operative works (think Saturday by Ian McEwan (which I loved for its metacognition about neurosurgery and live itself.) In general this book kept me on my feet. In general, I am not a big read...more

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Jul 08, 2012 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Jason Payne

Shelves: 2012

Other reviews have complained that this novel has a convoluted plot or lacks verisimilitude, but isn't that what we want in a book like this? I bet real spies do a lot of paperwork and fruitless stakeouts that we don't read about. And it doesn't seem fair to say this book has a convoluted plot when it's in the same genre as Olen Steinhauer's tangles. Complications are the name of the game.

Kate moves to Luxembourg with her husband, who does IT security for banks. She becomes an expat stay-at-home...more

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About Chris Pavone

I'm author of the suspense novel "The Expats" (Crown, March 2012), and a longtime book editor. I'm married and the father of twin schoolboys; we live in New York City and the North Fork of Long Island.

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Quotes from The Expats

“The best hiding spots are not the most hidden; they're merely the least searched.” — 5 people liked it

“It was impossible to understand how brief it is. It seemed like youth would last so long; it would last forever. But it's just a blink.” — 5 people liked it

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