by S. Lee Manning
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Espionage also had an appeal because as an introverted teen with a love of books, I was always listening in and watching people in restaurants, malls, parties, and at family gatherings. I was the spy, gleaning information while I stayed silent and, in my mind at least, invisible.
So, of course, when I wrote my first thriller, it was in the spy world: creating Kolya Petrov—a naturalized Russian Jewish immigrant to the United States working for American intelligence. I wanted him to be a fully realized character. I gave him a detailed backstory, in which he learned to play piano from his concert pianist mother until she died when he was nine, and where he went into an abusive boys’ home before being adopted by an American cousin. He likes to read, he plays jazz piano, and he gets annoyed by an overeager young agent.
Then I had to decide what to do about his love life.
Spies always have love lives. That is a big part of the genre. But the spies of my youth didn’t fall in love the way a character in a Jane Austin novel falls in love, a love that leads to a wedding and a happily ever after. Each book, each television episode brought a new love interest, one that ended when I closed the book or turned off the tv.
When I moved on to reading the more serious spy novels of John le Carré, characters still didn’t have happily ever afters. Love was portrayed as a weakness, especially for le Carré’s most famous spy, George Smiley, madly in love with his cheating wife Ann, a fact that is used by his counterpart in Russia to blind Smiley to the identity of a British traitor.
Spy novels also use the trope of tragic love—the love interest who dies or the love interest who leaves because she can’t take her lover’s profession.
To sum up, the average spy in literature, movies, and television has a love life that is either sad or shallow.
There are exceptions to the above generalization. Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon novels start out following the pattern of the tragic love story with the history of Allon’s wife who went mad after she was injured and their son killed by a car bomb explosion. But as the novels progress, Allon falls in love again and, shocker, has not just a happy marriage but children.
I decided that I didn’t want Kolya to have the James Bond kind of love life, with a new woman every book, or a George Smiley type of failed relationship, or the tragic dead lover that he would brood over for the rest of the series.
I would follow the less traditional route, close to but not identical to that of Gabriel Allon: Kolya would have a love interest who was an equal partner. Thus, Alex Feinstein, a successful attorney, entered the scene. She’s capable of holding her own in a tense situation and both willing and able to call Kolya out when he annoys her or steps over the line.
But, of course, in any spy thriller, the protagonist having someone he cares deeply about is a vulnerability. And, of course, any thriller author worth her salt is going to milk that vulnerability.
And I do. The villain in Trojan Horse, my first novel, kidnaps Alex to pressure Kolya; in my second, Nerve Attack, Kolya is led to believe that Alex would be shot if he doesn’t cooperate. In my most recent release, Imminent Risk, Kolya’s fear that Alex may have died plays a critical role.
But with a slight twist on the damsel in distress trope, Alex rescues Kolya as often as he rescues her.
The next serious question was how and whether the relationship would progress. Early in Trojan Horse, Alex and Kolya get engaged. They remain engaged through the first three books, although buying a ring and shopping for a wedding dress doesn’t happen until the third novel, Bloody Soil.
In Imminent Risk, Kolya and Alex are three weeks from exchanging vows when Alex’s childhood friend, whose baby was taken by CPS, asks for her legal help. She flies to New York, leaving Kolya to deal with the caterer and the venue—until Kolya uncovers the friend’s connection with a sovereign nation group planning terrorist attacks. Then, despite the impending wedding, Kolya is back in action.
However, for the first time, Alex begins to question whether she and Kolya should get married—for all the obvious reasons. Does his love for her, which is his greatest vulnerability, put him in greater danger? And what would she tell any children they might have about Daddy’s frequent absences?
So do they “I do” or don’t they? For the answer, you’ll have to read the book. Or you could ask AI, but AI isn’t always accurate. Anyway, reading the book is more fun.
