An Expensive Education, about a young intelligence agent from Harvard, is nothing groundbreaking—for McDonell or the spy-novel genre—but it's smart and sexy and could be the beginning of a franchise more lucrative than literary fiction…blends a terse story of international intrigue with a biting satire of Harvard, from which McDonell graduated in 2007. As he's shown in his previous novels, he can be a ruthless chronicler of America's aristocratic culture.
—The Washington Post
Half campus novel, half geopolitical thriller, An Expensive Education proceeds…for 300 almost unerringly entertaining pages. McDonell skips from Washington to Nairobi as easily as he crosses the river between Cambridge and Boston, usually by means of short chapters and skillful cuts, but sometimes joining his characters in the comfortable business-class cabins of their transcontinental flights. Which is also to say, for all the fine reportorial detail about African dialects and the best way to negotiate with bandit militias, McDonell's true subjects are the status markers and status obsessions of his beautiful young cast.
—The New York Times
McDonell's third novel, a story of the messy consequences attendant upon a rogue American operation conducted against a Somalian freedom fighter, introduces a spy who could have easily walked off the pages of le Carré's better works. An American agent and recent Harvard graduate, Michael Teak has been assigned to deliver money to a band of east African freedom fighters led by local hero Hatashil. But while they're meeting, the village is decimated by a missile strike. Immediately, a mysterious story hits the wire, claiming Hatashil's men massacred the villagers. The news coincides with the Pulitzer Prize being awarded to a Harvard professor, Susan Lowell, whose book celebrates Hatashil. As Teak tries to come to terms with his own apparent expendability, Lowell fights vilification when a video that purportedly shows her pledging to kill for Hatashil surfaces. Meanwhile, an old Agency hand, Alan Green-Harvard alum and godfather to Teak-ties the stories together with his nefarious black world maneuverings. Teak is the most attractive fictional spy in quite some time, and even if the Harvard subplots feel too self-indulgent and insidery, one hopes this isn't Teak's only appearance. (Aug.)
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McDonell's dark, relentlessly readable latest (The Third Brother, 2005, etc.) swings back and forth between Harvard and Africa, and in both cases the education is indeed expensive. At Harvard, brainy, beautiful professor Susan Lowell prepares to attend the party celebrating her just-earned Pulitzer. Meticulously researched, her book centers on an East African freedom fighter named Hatashil, an authentic folk hero, in Susan's enthusiastic rendering. But hold everything. Reports have begun circulating of a brutal, bloody atrocity that has wiped out every man, woman and child in a small African village near the Kenya-Somalia border. Informed sources are labeling it "Hatashil's Massacre." Suddenly General Hatashil is looking downright genocidal, and is that egg besmirching Susan's lovely face? Once noticeably in Hatashil's corner, the U.S. government is backpedaling furiously to get out of it, leaving Susan noticeably alone. Criticism mounts, along with ugly talk about an undeserved prize that perhaps ought to be rescinded. The Crimson attacks her; students want to drop her courses. Cut to Michael Teak, a young Harvard graduate currently in the employ of U.S. intelligence. A linguist and athlete, Michael is also outstandingly courageous and lethally resourceful-a thinking man's Rambo, as it were. In addition, he's the only living witness to what actually happened in that ill-fated African village. But will he do the right thing? Will Susan? The 20-something author keeps his smart, ambitious, self-absorbed characters at arm's-length, doling out understanding and compassion to them while withholding real affection. A novel for the head more than the heart, but so very intelligent that for acertain kind of reader it will be catnip. East Coast tour including Boston and New York City. Agent: Eric Simonoff/Janklow & Nesbit
“McDonell’s third novel . . . introduces a spy who could have easily walked off the pages of le Carré’s better works . . . Teak is the most attractive fictional spy in quite some time . . . one hopes this isn’t [his] only appearance.” —Publishers Weekly
“Part college novel and part spy thriller in the tradition of Green and le Carré, An Expensive Education encompasses global, national, and campus politics, showing the way the biggest agendas are sometimes set on the smallest stages. McDonell writes about hot topics with a cool head, and his riveting novel should fuel an emotional response from readers.” —Booklist (starred review)
"McDonell's dark, relentelessly readable latest swings back and forth between Harvard and Africa, and in both cases the education is indeed expensive . . . The 20-something author keeps his smart, ambitious, self-absorbed characters at arm’s-length, doling out understanding and compassion to them while withholding real affection. A novel for the head more than the heart, but so very intelligent that for a certain kind of reader it will be catnip.” —Kirkus (starred review)
“McDonell continues his streak with a suspenseful, Graham Greene–inspired third effort . . . it's clear this young writer has only begun to show where his prodigious storytelling will take us.” —People
“An Expensive Education blends a terse story of international intrigue with a biting satire of Harvard . . . Smart and sexy and could be the beginning of a franchise more lucrative than literary fiction.” —Ron Charles, The Washington Post
“For decades, the intersection of the Ivy League and the CIA has made for good storytelling. But most of these are august tales of the Cold War, told from the wise, occasionally stuffy viewpoint of an old master. Now the 25-year-old McDonell — who burst onto the literary scene at 17 with his novel Twelve — has enlivened the genre with An Expensive Education . . . Tempered by some hilarious insider glimpses of Harvard life, An Expensive Education is terrific, a thriller noir that's difficult to put down or forget." —Entertainment Weekly (A-)
“At twenty-five, McDonell is delivering on his literary promise. An Expensive Education is an adult novel, albeit not too grown-up. There are nods to Graham Greene, but the book struck me as more like what an early Bret Easton Ellis novel might be like if Ellis believed in plots. . . . McDonell has mastered the mechanics of genre without losing his literary hipness.” —The Oregonian
“Unerringly entertaining . . . McDonell skips from Washington to Nairobi as easily as he crosses the river between Cambridge and Boston, usually by means of short chapters and skillful cuts. . . . [His protagonist Teak] is more Holden Caulfield than James Bond: the spy in quarterlife crisis. And it’s the juxtaposition of his cold-blooded training and soulful moping that gives the book its charm.” —The New York Times Book Review
Nick Cordero gets to show off a couple of nifty foreign accents—one Scots and one African—in this spy novel, but regrettably those episodes are too brief to compensate for an otherwise lackluster performance. His delivery is earnest enough, but he doesn’t sound interested in finding the crannies of characterization that would make McDonell’s cast come alive. The novel raises the question of whether the leader of a group of Somalian freedom fighters is a hero or a monster as barbaric as his enemies. Those trying to discern answers are an American intelligence agent, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and an African national studying at Harvard who is left wondering who killed his family. If only Cordero had managed to breathe life into them. M.O. © AudioFile 2011, Portland, Maine
