In Roger Croft's explosive and mercurial espionage thriller, The Wayward Spy, he offers readers an idea of how the secret undercover spy world works-and how one might throw a wrench in it. Croft's take on things is part farce, complete irony, and unfettered action. When retiring newsman Michael Vaux returns to the neighborhood in Cairo where he grew up, he's reunited with former schoolmate Ahmed Abdul Kadri, who happens to be Syria's chief armaments buyer. With good reason, this piques the interest of the British Secret Service who orders him to tow his country's lines-and interests. Directed to pump critical intelligence from Kadri, who is presumably a bitter former official of the Syrian regime, when Vaux goes missing all bets are off. In a dynamic, masterfully crafted plot that takes readers from Geneva to Morocco, until the very end, it's nearly impossible to figure out the ruse or even, at times, what's at stake. Perhaps, when it comes down to it, there's nothing better than a willful spook.