Olen Steinhauer grew up in Virginia, and has lived throughout the US and Europe. His first novel, The Bridge of Sighs (2003), began a five-book sequence chronicling Cold War Eastern Europe, one book per decade. With The Tourist (2009), he began a trilogy of spy tales focused on international deception in the post 9/11 world. The Tourist reached the New York Times bestseller list. The Nearest Exit (2010) won the Hammett Prize for best literary crime novel of the year. The finale, An American Spy (2012), spent 3 weeks on the New York Times, LA Times and Publisher’s Weekly bestseller lists.

The Cairo Affair (2014), which begins in Budapest and moves to post-Mubarak Cairo and Libya in the midst of the Arab Spring, reached a number of bestseller lists, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Publisher’s Weekly.

All the Old Knives (2015), deals with terrorism, love and revenge, split between a restaurant in California and the American embassy in Vienna. He penned the screenplay, which is being produced by Chockstone Pictures and Nick Wechsler Productions.