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    The Expats
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    The Expats
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    The Expats
    Audiobook14 hours

    The Expats

    Written by Chris Pavone

    Narrated by Buffy Davis

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this audiobook

    Kate Moore is an expat mum, newly transplanted from Washington D.C. to Luxembourg, where her days are filled with play dates and coffee mornings. Kate is also guarding a secret - one so momentous it could destroy her. She suspects that another American couple are not who they claim to be, and finds herself looking over her shoulder, terrified her past is catching up with her. Soon Kate is buried in layers of deceit so thick they threaten her family, her marriage and her life.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Howes Ltd
    Release dateJun 1, 2012
    ISBN9781471201509
    Unavailable
    The Expats
    Author

    Chris Pavone

    Chris Pavone is the author of The Paris Diversion, The Travelers, The Accident, and The Expats. His novels have appeared on the bestseller lists of The New York Times, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal; have won both the Edgar and Anthony awards; are in development for film and television; and have been translated into two dozen languages. Chris grew up in Brooklyn, graduated from Cornell, and worked as a book editor for nearly two decades. He lives in New York City and on the North Fork of Long Island with his family.

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    Reviews for The Expats

    3.5/5

    659 ratings80 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Kate Moore is a working mother who is trying to put on an impression that she loves her life. Raising kids is a burden and a blessing to her, they mean the world to her but she still questions if she is really living the life she dreamed of living. Married to a workaholic has not made matters any easier, especially when she is in dark on what he really does for a career. Although she has an idea on how her husband makes her income, she is still unsure that he is being completely honest with her. When she relocates to Luxembourg, she must learn the master the language, household duties and doing the necessities of a mother. Kate suspicion gets the best of her and starts to find clues that will confirm her constant worry that her husband is not the man she married.I enjoyed the first half of the book. It was suspenseful in some parts but it was not something that grabbed me from the first page. As I kept reading, it interested me to find out about the secrets that was revealed. However, there were a lot of loopholes and some questions were left unanswered. I felt that the author wrote a decent debut novel but with minor inconsistencies.
    • 5/5
      Original in every way, right down to being written by a man but from a woman’s point of view - which he does very well. Listening to a lot of novels while decorating as I do right now you can tell instantly when something is light years ahead of the standard thriller. This is. The quality of writing is excellent - always leading you on, intriguing, never saying too much. Characters have depth and their descriptions too are very good. The whole book is almost a style guide as to how to write in this genre. I wish I could find more like this. I keep on hoping but then within a few minutes of a new one, you can tell - Just not the same. 6 stars out of 5!
    • 4/5
      An absorbing page-turner, perfectly paced, with layers of deception peeled tantalizingly away and back stories gradually revealed as the characters disport themselves about various picturesque European locales. If you need a book to take you out of your surroundings on a tedious plane trip or an unbearably hot summer day, this would be a good choice!
    • 4/5
      Much of the book will leave you puzzled and wondering where you are. But out of this crazy endless series of loops, engaging in activities today with thoughts of yesterday and before while thinking about possible scenarios tomorrow ... pulls together an engaging story with interesting characters. Fun, but challenging read.
    • 3/5
      Like other reviewers here I’m mystified as to why this author has won awards and critical acclaim. I chose it because I saw a Sunday Times review of his most recent title being given a positive review. Judging by this one I can’t imagine why.

      I was listening to the audiobook rather than reading so that may have increased the total confusion around the timeline - there was so much setting up over so much of the book in two situations that had. nothing to distinguish them that I spent most of the time trying to position what I was hearing onto the timeline. I listen to lighter stuff in audiobooks for diversion at the gym and driving so I don’t generally listen to the serious stuff I want to see on the page but even so I surprised myself that I actually listened to the end as i was infuriated by the baggy style and the lack of characterisation. The first quarter felt quite pacy which drew me on but the plotting was so drawn out (and confused by the use of multiple timelines) it lost all impetus.
      I snorted out loud when I read one reviewer here who said that the author made a good job of writing from a woman’s perspective. This reviewer was a man so how he felt qualified to say it was a good job is a mystery to me. It’s not. It’s full of ludicrous stereotypes and presents a vapid scaredy cat housewife character who gets irritated her husband isn’t home, yet her former life was supposed to be as a gun toting CIA agent who murders for a living. And she didn’t suspect anything!?!
    • 4/5
      Great story but did not like the way it was written, going from present to past to present.
    • 4/5
      A jolly good page-turner.
    • 3/5
      The Associated Press says, " Impossible to put down….Pavone invokes memories of the great writers of spy fiction of the past, and he has the chops to be mentioned with the best of them."

      Having finished the book, I think the AP has been overly generous with its praise as of the best new spy fiction authors. This book can't be compared to Frederic Forsyth and Robert Ludlum espionage classics.

      Our protagonist spy, Catherine, or Kate as she prefers, is a terrified female CIA agent. Something in her CIA field duties weighs heavy on her mind and she abruptly gave up murder and mayhem to serve the CIA in a safer job in intelligence.

      Kate, having cared for her sickly parents and a younger sister, has a desperate need to be needed for herself, and finds the perfect spouse in her mild manned computer geek husband. Children arrive and she is satisfied to live a double life with one hand in the spy business and the other as Mom and lover.

      Dexter, the geek, arrives home one day with the news that he has been recruited to a dream job, with a fabulous raise, as a security analyst, for an unnamed bank in Europe. Feigning unrest about the abrupt move, Kate sees this as her chance to give up her duplicitous life to focus solely on family.

      The move overseas soon leaves our new expat housewife confused, lonely and rudderless. She learns that stay-at-home mom is not the glamorous bon-bon eating lifestyle she envisioned. It doesn't take long before folding laundry, breaking up fights between siblings and cleaning toilets feels less fulfilling than spy work and paying a maid.

      She joins an expat wives group and begins to form friendships. One expat couple, in particular, strives to become very close to Kate and Dexter. As this friendship blossoms, Kate's former CIA nose senses trouble in the air. Who are Julia and Bill? Their behavior with and around Dexter and Kate seems odd and off-setting.

      Who is Dexter, for that matter? Why does Dexter refuse to discuss his work? Does Dexter also have a deep secret side? Despite her thorough background checks on him, twice, before she accepted his marriage proposal, there seems to be side to Dexter that she never knew. What does he do to spend so much time away from home in a foreign country?
      Kate is lured back into the spy business on her own; thus begins the heart of the story.

      The story is easy to read, has many little twists and turns that leave questions unanswered.
      The family scenes are cute and the sex isn't really graphic. The shopping gets a little tedious.
      Anyone who enjoys watching Angela Lansbury in Murder, She Wrote or Matlock and can handle a little closet dalliance will enjoy reading The Expats. If chosen, it should make an interesting light spy movie.

      I received this book from Blogging for Books for this review.
    • 2/5
      While The Expats is a fairly clever and well-paced espionage-ish novel it fell flat to me for some reason. Maybe it was writing like this, straight out of Creative Writing 101: “Dexter dropped the coin into the machine and pressed the button and waited for the sputter and hiss and burble of the espresso, spitting and spurting out of the discolored plastic nozzle into the flimsy disposable cup.”Chris Pavone didn’t kill enough darlings in this book.From the same sequence: “This rest-area-machine coffee; it was hot and strong and decent. There was a lot of good coffee, everywhere in Europe.” Hemingway on coffee.There are quite a few realistic espionage novels with taut writing. This isn’t one of them.
    • 3/5
      Kate Moore leaves her job at the CIA to live in Luxembourg with her husband, Dexter. Kate has two young children and feels her job is too risky. Dexter works for himself in information security and has a contract with a bank. When another American couple arrives, Kate begins to suspect they are not who they claim to be. She thinks her husband may be keeping secrets, just as she has kept secrets from him.

      This is a complicated mystery with technical, financial, and espionage components. I enjoyed the multiple layers and the setting in Luxembourg. The main drawback for me is that Kate is not believable as a former CIA agent. For a supposedly bright person, she is not very good at figuring things out.

      There is a very long and dull lead-in to introduce Kate to the readers for her role in the series. The action does not take place until the last third of the book. It is more of a mystery than a thriller. The ending contains the requisite twists and turns, and a drawn-out reveal. It is reasonably entertaining but there are a few plot holes and lots of eye-rolling moments.
    • 4/5
      I read a little blurb somewhere, put a hold on at my library, and am
      now half way thru. Mostly delightful. Interesting enough story,
      CIA-Mom, leaves the Agency to move, with their two kids, to Luxembourg
      for her husband's job.

      The writing is really pretty good, partly straightforward and partly
      modernistic with a mysterious (to me) structure of time, keeping me on
      my toes. Odd cuts and jumps in time are more delicious in their
      surprisingness than in annoyablity.

      Finished. Quite the story. Nicely complicated, nicely wrapped up. And, still good writing.
    • 4/5
      Everyone in this book has secrets and as we read, we find out the depth of how much has been kept from us because of the skillful plotting. This book has almost every trope seen in your typical James Bond movie - sudden reveals, dangerous sky slopes, karate chops, betrayals etc. The suspense level is captivating and makes for a definite page turner. "...the secrets between them, the distance those secrets created. Her secrets: her secret life. The spying on him she'd already done and planned on doing, the massive wall of untruths that was growing taller every day, with every conversation they didn't have, every admission she didn't make." This is a beguiling thriller.
    • 1/5
      Two timelines that are two close together to be treated separately, way too much description makes it sound like a Rick Steves' travel guide, and the story doesn't become compelling until the very end.
    • 4/5
      This is a confusion par excellence. An American family decides to emigrate to Europe. The reasons are manifold. For the wife begins a new life, as she has always worked as a mother for the CIA, but her husband knew nothing about it. He is the driving force behind emigrating, because as a computer security expert he has figured out how to steal money from others during the transfer. His wife knew nothing about that. When they live in Luxembourg, two FBI agents are tracking him down. Since no one else has knowledge of what the other is doing, the whole thing is very tricky.
    • 4/5
      Great book. Well-paced, clever structure, kept me guessing, and actually made me feel a little paranoid walking the streets.
    • 2/5
      Why did I read “The Expats” (EX)? I should have known better. My wife read it years back and deemed it so-so. Amazon readers rate it at less than a four. But, it did win an Edgar, it was billed as set in Luxembourg and how many novels do you get to read about Lux, and there were some favorable comments about it recently tied in with author Chris Pavone’s recent release of a sequel (though the sequel didn’t get great reviews). OK, so why is EX boring, and nowhere close to being a good spy novel? Or crime fiction novel? Or however you want to label it. Three reasons. First, nothing interesting happens until well into the second half, perhaps last third of the book. And it was never interesting enough to keep me up late into the night. Some tighter editing and trimming perhaps 100+ pages would have helped, but dull is dull, and those fixes would have made it only less dull. Maybe Luxembourg is a dull place, it certainly felt that way after reading EX. Secondly, I felt like I was watching one of those Hallmark romcom mysteries, only it was eight hours long instead of two. Lots of family scenes, dropping the kids at school, running into other expats at the local coffee shop, gossip, gossip, pick up the kids, why does my husband have to work every night, etc. Thirdly, the flashbacks. Half the time I couldn’t tell if I was inside a flashback or not, and if so which flashback, and were there flashbacks within flashbacks? I think so but I’m not sure. At one point I wasn’t even in the right city.What’s it about? Bank fraud. Not state secrets. Who is this couple that star in this drama. Well he’s a computer wiz, specifically bank security systems, and she is a retired government employee (ahem). They want to see the rest of the world and make some money. That’s not a bad plot, on a macro level, but that’s only the first couple dozen pages. Then it nosedives. However, I do give it a star for being woman focused – it’s the females that figure things out, make things happen, and set the boundaries. But still….zzzzz. Could have been a good story, though, if only
    • 5/5
      Excellent distraction. A touch too overtly strong-woman for my (male) tastes (this is just a quibble), but the O'Henry turn was well worth sticking it through.
    • 4/5
      I'll post a longer review later, but the short version is: great plot! It intrigued me enough to stay up 'till all hours, finishing it in a day.
    • 5/5
      I thoroughly enjoyed the back and forth, even though it was a little startling every time the time jumped into the past---but you needed it for all of the twists and turns of this adventure. I'm looking forward to reading his other books.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this book, and liked the idea of a woman who was a former spy for the CIA and now married with children. This book had a lot of interesting 'cliffhangers' at the end of chapters that didn't get resolved until later in the book. Sometimes it was hard to put down because I wanted to see what that 'thought' was about. What I mean by that is the author would tease the reader with a one sentence jump to the future which kept me wondering what it meant.

      The big downfall of the book was the back and forth between current day and the past. It got confusing, even though the book had different fonts to indicate current day (even day and time) it was the point in times of the past that had me wondering when this event was happening.

      If you can get past that one downfall....it was a very good book and I would like to read future books by this author.

      Also, good book for a book club to discuss if you would make the same choices as Kate.
    • 2/5
      How did this book get published? It might be an Edgar Award winner, but it is also wordy, poorly edited, implausible, and over-drawn. Don't waste your time!
    • 4/5
      This very cleverly-plotted espionage thriller is quite entertaining; Jim and I both enjoyed it. Besides this book having an incredible amount of fun plot turns, the author includes a great deal of astute commentary on the nature of friendship and marriage.Most of the book takes place in Luxembourg, where Dexter Moore has moved with his wife Kate and two young kids, Ben and Jake, after receiving a job offer with a large increase in salary he was loathe to refuse. Kate quits her own job of fifteen years, thinking it was time anyway. But she is bored in Luxembourg, where she cleans, shops, does child care, and joins other expat wives for coffee klatches.Soon the two are befriended by another expat couple, Julia and Bill Maclean, but Kate suspects they aren’t who they claim to be. For that matter, neither is she. Has her secret past finally caught up to her? As she begins to dig, she realizes nothing and nobody is who she thought they were.Discussion: I loved the ongoing dialogue about the nature of relationships, as when Kate thinks about what she wants to say to Dexter:“As much as Kate had been resenting Dexter, and this new life of hers, he was still her best friend. But she was worried - no, it was beyond the uncertainty of worry; it was awareness - that this would cross some line in their marriage, a line that no one acknowledged until you were on its precipice. You know the lines are there, you feel them: the things you don’t discuss. The sexual fantasies. The flirtations with other people. The deep-seated mistrusts, misgivings, resentments. You go about your business, as far away from these lines as possible, pretending they’re not there. So when you eventually find yourself at one of these lines, your toe inching over, it’s not only shocking and horrifying, it’s banal. Because you’ve always been aware that the lines were there, where you were trying with all your might not to see them, knowing that sooner or later you would.”As Kate acknowledges:“…all people have secrets. Part of being human is having secrets, and being curious about other people’s secrets. Dirty fetishes and debilitating fascinations and shameful defeats and ill-begotten triumphs, humiliating selfishness and repulsive inhumanity. The horrible things that people have thought and done, the lowest points in their lives.”But living with secrets takes a toll:“What complete loneliness is this? Surrounded by people, suffused with untruth, unable to tell anyone anything real. Vague acquaintances, casual friends, intimates, even her single soul-mate, the one person in the world, her partner, her ally, her everything. His head was thrown back in carefree laughter, his eyeglasses askew, hair mussed, crooked smile. She loved him so much. Even when she hated him.”Evaluation: This is a delightful book with elements of both intelligence and inanity that keep you turning the pages in wonder at the ingenuity and ineptness operating simultaneously in the protagonists. Note: This book garnered a number of awards, including:Edgar Award (First Novel, 2013)Thriller Award Nominee (First Novel 2013)Anthony Award (First Novel, 2013)Dilys Award nominee (2013)Macavity Award Nominee (First Novel, 2013)Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist (Mystery/Thriller, 2012)
    • 4/5
      When ex-CIA agent Kate Moore moves to Luxembourg with her husband Dexter and their two young sons for Dexter's job in finance security, Kate slowly begins to suspect that her husband is not exactly what he seems. The story has thriller roots, with some suspense and detecting/spying, but it almost has more in common with character study and a portrait of a marriage. It was pretty page-turner-y for me (though it did also seem to take a long time to get through) despite its lack of a lot of action scenes. I enjoyed its slightly less violent/action-packed take on the thriller, as that (especially the violence) tends to turn me off these sorts of books all together. The end felt perhaps a bit anticlimactic while somehow seeming pretty right too. I'm glad I read it.
    • 5/5
      'The Expats' is a dynamite thriller, Chris Pavone's first. An auspicious beginning, I'd say. Tight plotting, a tricky story line that'll have readers guessing until the final pages, and expert writing that both propels the story forward while at the same time bouncing around in time and place all combine for one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I've had in awhile.Everyone has a secret or two. In 'The Expats', that would be a major understatement. The heroine, as it were, is an ex-CIA agent married to a cybersecurity specialist. He doesn't know about her previous life (and certainly not the things she did while in it), and she has no idea what her husband really does to support them and suspects, rightly, it doesn't exactly match what he says. The family moves from the US to Luxemburg, supposedly for her husband's job, and is befriended by another set of American expats, neither of whom are who they say they are. It's a real cat and mouse novel, and when the cheese is revealed you'll begin to understand the arrangement a little better. Or not. Once you think you've figured out the motivation and can predict what's coming, subsequent pages will prove you wrong. Guaranteed.It's definitely an unconventional story with loads of surprises, which I enjoy the heck out of, but I think what I liked best was the writing. Pavone's technique of jumping between the present and multiple spots on the timelines of the characters, in the US (Washington DC), Luxemburg, Paris, and various other European spots, not only provided important character development along the way but also succeeded in keeping my reading interest up. I'm not sure the novel would have been quite as interesting had it been written in a more linear way.I loved 'The Expats' and look forward to future offerings from Chris Pavone. Highly recommended!
    • 5/5
      Kate quits her job as her husband takes on a position in banking in Luxemborg. Their new friends, other ex-pat's, are not who they appear. And in her investigation neither is her husband....or she! Good and suspenseful.
    • 3/5
      Entertaining book, even if it stretches believability quite a lot. The "big reveal" wasn't that shocking when you finally got there but the author did a good of maintaining the tension throughout the book.
    • 4/5
      Kate's husband Dexter suggests they move to Luxembourg for his work and she makes this opportunity to quit her job with the CIA. Kate has never told Dexter that she works for the CIA and decides there is no point now. In Luxembourg Kate discovers that she is bored at home with their two boys and socializing with other ex-pats. She and Dexter become friends with another American couple, Bill and Julia Maclean, but Kate soon starts to wonder if the Macleans are really who they say they are.I found this novel very readable and it kept my interest well. The two different time frames mostly worked well for me. However, there were parts of the plot which were unconvincing. Kate must have been the world's worst CIA operative because there were times when she missed things the narrative flagged up for the reader with enormous red flags. The ending was also rather excessive and Kate's decision in the last few pages bewildering. I was slightly confused about what Kate expected to happen next. Dexter's character and the precise extent and nature of his agency in what happened seemed to shift; I was never quite sure what he was really like. I would also comment that for a family living on a reasonably modest income in Europe, they seemed to spend an awful lot of money on travel.
    • 2/5
      Convoluted story that used the cliffhanger too much.
    • 5/5
      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.
    • 4/5
      Kate Moore has been secretly working at the CIA for over fifteen years. When she married and had two sons, she moved from the field agent role to a cover job where she is a writer for position papers at a think tank. When her computer-geek husband Dexter accepts a job in Luxembourg she quits and decides to become a stay-at-home mom.

      From the very beginning of The Expats, the reader knows that Kate is hiding something. What that is becomes clear soon enough, and with that, the reader is off on a thrill ride that is both fun and suspenseful. Kate’s a great main character to tell this story; she’s smart and deadly, and her instincts are spot on. It’s interesting to watch her try to adapt to her new role in a foreign country, but that doesn’t stop her from investigating everyone around her, trying to get to the heart of what is really happening.

      The plot is fairly complex, with twists and turns at every corner. Kate’s character is the most interesting but the other characters are equally well written. The author created an intricate plot with layers and layers that are slowly peeled away until the truth is revealed. If you are looking for a sophisticated spy novel, similar to something from John le Carre, this is not the book for you. If, instead, you’re looking for a fast read that provides plenty of entertainment, this could be what you're looking for. This is my first Chris Pavone novel but I'll check out another one soon.