Most spy novels dazzle readers with car chases and high-tech gadgets. B.W. Leavitt’s How to Train a Spy takes a darker path, peeling back the layers of espionage to reveal its most disturbing casualty: the human mind. Leavitt’s book is about former Army Sergeant Brian Lewis, a committed family man, as he’s recruited into a covert government program meant to build the world’s greatest operators. The twist? Suppose Brian is going to be the ultimate spy. In that case, he’ll have to leave behind his family, his name, and eventually himself. Throughout the book, Brian undergoes brutal physical and psychological conditioning. Sleep-learning programs feed him new languages and strategies. Virtual reality missions simulate his death over and over, rewiring his fear responses. Each step strips away pieces of the man he used to be. After his makeover, readers are left wondering: Is there anything of Brian Lewis remaining at all? “Espionage stories are often about external conflicts,” says Leavitt. “I wanted to explore the internal war, a person’s fight to hold on to their humanity in an environment designed to erase it.”
The emotional core of the book is in Brian’s interactions with his wife and children. Their last holiday together, staged as a sendoff, torments the story. Brian grapples with notions of home in defiance of his teachers’ attempts to release him from it all. His internal narrative is as tense and compelling as the clandestine activities he performs later. This psychological vision distinguishes How to Train a Spy from run-of the-mill thrillers. It’s a novel that’s as much about identity collapse as it is about global intrigue. With governments fiddling with brain implants, behavior conditioning, and electronic espionage these days, Leavitt’s vision proves uncomfortably close. Available on Amazon, How to Train a Spy will resonate with fans of literary thrillers and readers fascinated by the human cost of secrecy.