Altman, John 1969–

PERSONAL: Born 1969.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Penguin Putnam, 375 Hudson St., New York, NY 10014.

CAREER: Writer, film producer, and musician. Producer, with Aimée Larrabee, of documentary film, Last Stand of the Tallgrass Prairie, Public Broadcasting Service.

WRITINGS:

A Gathering of Spies, G.P. Putnam's Sons (New York, NY), 2000.

(With Aimée Larrabee) Last Stand of the Tallgrass Prairie (companion book to documentary film), Friedman/Fairfax (New York, NY), 2001.

A Game of Spies, G.P. Putnam's Sons (New York, NY), 2002.

Deception, G.P. Putnam's Sons (New York, NY), 2003.

The Watchmen, G.P. Putnam's Sons (New York, NY), 2004.

SIDELIGHTS: John Altman's first two novels are set during World War II. A Kirkus Reviews contributor called the first, A Gathering of Spies, "a debut suspense chock-full of the requisite genre elements—plus a lot more gore than even those specs call for."

The story begins in 1933. Katarina Heinrich is a Nazi spy who goes undercover in the United States, working as a maid in Princeton, New Jersey under the name Catherine Danielson, an identity she steals after killing the young woman whose name it was. BookPage reviewer Bruce Tierney described Katarina as "the consummate villain, a beautiful and deadly femme fatale, breathtaking in every sense of the word."

The spy marries her employer, Richard Carter, a mathematics professor who in 1943 is asked to work on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico. When Katarina discovers a letter to her husband from Albert Einstein that includes the plans for an atomic bomb, she must make her way to England and her lover and fellow agent, Fritz Meissner, to pass on the information that can help Germany win the war.

In a second thread, Harry Winterbotham is a British professor who is being recruited into becoming a double agent and infiltrate the Nazi spy rings. Harry's wife was taken in Poland by the Nazis, and this could be his incentive to take the job, or to betray his country in order to save his wife. Eventually, Winterbotham and Katrina confront each other as they continue with their missions. The story also includes a plot to assassinate Hitler.

A Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote that Altman's "atmospheric debut thriller smells deliciously of Hitchcock and 1940s British spy films," and further called it "an irresistible page-turner from a welcome new voice in the genre."

Harriet Klausner, writing in Booksnbytes.com, called Altman's second novel, A Game of Spies, "even better [than the first,] as readers receive a powerful historical spy tale that never slows down as both sides use people as fodder in a deadly game of trump." The story is set in 1942, and Eva Barnhardt is a young German-born spy working for the British. Her superior, double agent William Hobbs, seduces her, involves her, and uses her for his own purposes, which include learning how Hitler plans to attack France. She, in turn, uses sex to extract information from clerk Otto Klinger. The Germans have learned that she is working for M16 and provide her with access to disinformation they want the British to believe. Both Eva and Hobbs, whose cover has been blown, flee for their lives with a group of Nazis in pursuit, including Frick, a former SS commander in Poland.

In a review for Curled Up with a Good Book online, Martin Schmutterer wrote that A Game of Spies "sets out to offer a hypothesis as to why and how Germany was able to leverage its weaker forces and overrun France. The Allies failed to stop the Germans because there was a failure of intelligence, Altman proposes, and his novel provides a fascinating what if." Patrick Anderson noted in the Washington Post Book World that "the peculiar charm" of this story is that "it features a man and a woman who are a bit smaller than life." Anderson also commented that the characters' mission, which initially appears to be minor, "is more important that it first seemed." The reviewer remarked that the book "is not only a well-told story but a moving one." Booklist critic Thomas Gaughan noted that Altman offers "insightful reflections" on the characters' "motives, morals, and misgivings," creating "a first-rate military thriller." A Kirkus Reviews contributor called A Game of Spies "tightly plotted, briskly paced: in its admirable economy what thrillers ought to be and seldom are."

Deception is a contemporary novel that centers around a breakthrough discovery that could be used to dominate the world, a way of using black holes to harness incredible amounts of energy. A Publishers Weekly contributor called the book "an exciting and moving adventure set in the present but owing much to the moral quandaries explored by past masters such as Eric Ambler and John le Carre."

In the novel, Hannah Gray accepts an offer of a free cruise from a cousin who can not use her reservation, she hopes to get away and think after she discovers that her business partner and lover is involved with fraud. Because of her failure to report him, she now finds herself in the position of being an accomplice. While on board, Hannah, who is traveling under the name of Vicky Ludlow, meets Renee and Stephen Epstein, who are soon killed by an assassin who looks like a boy because of a rare medical condition, and who is working for a top U.S. agency that wants to recover Stephan's formula. Stephan had written it on the back cover of a guidebook that he loaned to Hannah and which she still has in her possession. The agency head overseeing the search is Keyes, whose loyalties are questionable. Soon, Hannah is involved in a chase that involves Russian spies, hired killers, a Saudi prince, and American agents. "Altman keeps his multiple balls in the air with deft economy, some twists, and the right ration of verbs to adjectives," wrote a Kirkus Reviews critic.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, May 1, 2000, Gilbert Taylor, review of A Gathering of Spies, p. 1587; January 1, 2002, Thomas Gaughan, review of A Game of Spies, p. 815.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 2000, review of A Gathering of Spies, p. 576; June 1, 2001, Margaret Flanagan, review of Last Stand of the Tallgrass Prairie, p. 1810; December 15, 2001, review of A Game of Spies, p. 1698; March 15, 2003, review of Deception, p. 408.

Library Journal, April 1, 2003, Ronnie H. Terpening, review of Deception, p. 126.

Publishers Weekly, June 19, 2000, review of A Gathering of Spies, p. 59; April 21, 2003, review of Deception, p. 38.

Washington Post Book World, April 28, 2002, Patrick Anderson, review of A Game of Spies, p. 13.

ONLINE

BookPage, http://www.bookpage.com/ (January 22, 2004), Bruce Tierney, review of A Gathering of Spies.

Booksnbytes.com, http://www.booksnbytes.com/ (January 22, 2004), Harriet Klausner, reviews of A Gathering of Spies, A Game of Spies, and Deception.

Curled Up with a Good Book, http://www.curledup.com/ (January 22, 2004), Martin Schmutterer, reviews of A Gathering of Spies and A Game of Spies.