The Spy in the Ointment

The three-time Edgar Award–winning Grand Master of Mystery serves up a dangerous case of mistaken identity in “the best spy comedy I have ever read” (The New York Times).

J. Eugene Raxford is not what anyone would call a debonair man of action. He has no class, no skills, and all the physical prowess of a napping tree sloth. James Bond would think twice before letting him park the Aston Martin.

Though he is a devoted pacifist, Raxford is also—thanks to a tragically consequential typo—the supposed leader of a half-baked and violent radical organization. That’s why the FBI wants him to go undercover and spy on the consortium of real-life terrorists and deadly assassins.

Now, with the help of his girlfriend—who is even more clueless than he—Raxford is about to enter a realm of danger and deception unlike any he has ever imagined. And the safety of the entire world depends on his every move.

“If the suspense doesn’t kill you, the laughter will.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

“Inventive . . . Wholly delightful.” —The New York Times

“No writer can excel Donald E. Westlake . . . but he has excelled himself . . . If you miss it, you’ll regret it.” —Los Angeles Times

Praise for Donald E. Westlake
“Westlake has no peer in the realm of comic mystery novelists.” —San Francisco Chronicle