In the hands of its best practitioners the spy novel has always been a vehicle for exploring themes such as betrayal, disillusionment, and regret. Throw in atonement and the possibility of redemption and you have David Park’s short and engaging novel Spies in Canaan. Set mostly in Vietnam in the final days of America’s horror-filled engagement there, it tells the tale of an innocent, junior data analyst who gets pulled from his routine translation work into something altogether more murky and complex by a CIA officer. The corruption of innocence, the slow dissolution of ideals, and the effort to live a good life in spite of it all – those are Park’s preoccupations in this atmospheric and memorable story.