Twice a Spy picks up where Thomson’s previous spy thriller, Once a Spy, left off. The father-son team of Drummond and Charlie Clark have fled the United States and are hiding out in Switzerland, having been framed by a black-ops agency for the murder of US national security adviser Burton Hattemer. National Security Agency operative Alice Rutherford, who helped the Clarks escape, continues to aid them, until she’s kidnapped. For her return, the kidnappers ask one thing: that Drummond get them a Soviet-made bomb. To complicate matters, the Clarks are also being chased by someone else, a CIA officer.

Pretty typical spy stuff so far, but Thomson instills an interesting quirkiness in his books. Drummond, a retired CIA operations officer, has Alzheimer’s and his moments of lucidity come and go. Charlie, who until two weeks ago thought his father was a mild-mannered appliance salesman, finds a coping mechanism to deal with the Alzheimer’s: “If you were now, hypothetically, a fugitive, what would you do?” Posing the question to fit each situation, incredibly, the old man knows what to do each time.

Most of the book relies on the interplay between father and son, but there’s also a fast-moving plot with lots of twists and lots of chases—car, ambulance, and even amphibious vehicle. There’s no letup, as the duo escape from one set of bad guys only to land in the hands of another set. The plot is over-the-top at times, but as we race toward the end, we are rooting for the Clarks, hoping that, for once, the good guys will outwit the bad guys and save the day.