The Making of a Spy: How to Train a SpyExplores the Cost of Sacrifice

What do you imagine when you say the word spy? Gadgets, disguises, pulse-racing missions in far-off lands? Of course, all of that exists, but underneath the suave veneer lies something much bigger: the cost of self. B.W. Leavitt’s How to Train a Spy strips away the colors of spying to show us the cost it takes on the life and ego of one man. It’s not so much about learning to fight or how to learn a foreign language. It’s about completely losing yourself. And you can’t help but ask yourself, What do you do when duty to country collides with duty to family? The Call to Duty.

The novel starts on a gut level. Brian Lewis is an ordinary New York correctional officer who served in the military, and he’s drawn into a shadowy world for the sake of national security. Two mysterious agents show up in the dead of night, bundling him away in a helicopter to some undisclosed location. Their message is chilling but straightforward: You’re the man we’ve been looking for.

Out there, what they’re offering is a nice package: his family protected, his debt settled, his loved ones taken care of while he’s “on assignment.” But the fine print? He’ll be gone with them for two years or more with no communication, no questions, no going back until the mission is accomplished. It is the ultimate form of patriotism: give up everything first and expect better later. And Brian concurs. But as readers, we are left to struggle with the morality of that choice. Did he have a say? Or was he manipulated backstage by threats and silenced promises? The scene makes you squirm because it so easily illustrates how “duty” can be used as a sword against one’s love for their kin. Sacrificing Identity The instant Brian enters this new world, the change sets in, and it is nasty. The agency takes his past away from him little by little. His name? Gone. His looks? Changed. His memories of normalcy? Dissipating rapidly. They’ve given him new names, conditioned him to fight in simulated reality, given him injections of brain- and reflex-boosting drugs, and even put him through sleep-learning with dreamlike neural hats .It’s fascinating but also deeply unsettling. As a reader, you can’t help but ask: at what point does the training stop building resilience and start erasing humanity? Brian’s progression from hesitant recruit to lethal operative feels less like growth and more like a hollowing out. He becomes a blank slate for the agency to write on. There’s a particularly jarring moment when Brian realizes he no longer feels uncomfortable sharing close quarters or even a bed with the women posing as his “wives” for training purposes. The old Brian, correctional officer, husband, and father, would have been appalled. But not the new Brian. He obeys. That’s when it hits you that he’s moving increasingly away from himself. Family and Emotional Toll What makes How to Train a Spy so gripping isn’t just the high-stakes training or shadowy conspiracies; it’s the quiet, heartbreaking moments
with Brian’s family. Although he has not yet been formally recruited into the program, the agency has booked a month-long holiday for him, his wife Sue Yong, and their two children. On paper, it’s a pipedream: RV holiday with campfires, theme parks, and laughter.
But under that idyllic family time lies a constant tension. Brian knows it’s all a facade, a brief window before he’s ripped away from them. He’s hyper-aware of every hug, every smile, because he knows he’s about to break their hearts without explanation. Meanwhile, Sue Yong doesn’t know the truth. She’s told her husband has been “recalled to the Army” for a secret mission, and the FBI agents shadowing them play along. It’s gut-wrenching when Brian starts emotionally detaching, even during this vacation. He begins to compartmentalize his feelings, preparing himself for a life where family is a memory he can’t afford to cling to. The book forces you to wonder: How much of Brian’s love for his family will survive the mission? Or is this emotional numbing the first step toward losing them entirely?

The Price of Secrecy
At the end, How to Train a Spy leaves one with more questions than answers. Sure, Brian has become the perfect agent, highly trained, razor- sharp, and utterly loyal to the people pulling the strings. But it makes you stop and think, what did it cost him? He is no longer the one controlling his own life. The connections he had, the memories he cherished, even the core of who he was. All of it has been stripped away.

It’s hard not to feel conflicted. On one hand, you respect Brian’s courage.
On the other hand, you deplore the man Brian has turned out to be. The book doesn’t leave you with a neat solution because there is none. It leaves you with an uncomfortable question: Is it possible for anyone to ever truly return from a life like this? Or is the person they once were forever gone?

Final Thoughts
Unlike most spy thrillers, How to Train a Spy moves at a gentler pace, focusing more on introspection and the raw, human cost of living a life in the shadows. It’s about the sacrifices we ask of those who protect us and whether those sacrifices are too much. If you’re looking for a book that blends action with deep emotional stakes, this one is worth your time. Then pose this question to yourself: Would you have agreed, had you been in Brian’s position?