55 pages • 1 hour read
Chris PavoneThe Expats
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2012A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: Chris Pavone
Chris Pavone began his career in publishing, working as a book editor and ghostwriter on several nonfiction titles. His shift to thriller writing came after his wife accepted a job offer that required their family to move from the US to Luxembourg, a clear influence on the premise for Pavone’s 2012 novel, The Expats. Pavone has cited the American novelists John Grisham and Pat Conroy as influences on his writing. Grisham’s prolific body of work helped Pavone realize the value of suspense fiction as a literary genre, while Conroy helped Pavone to derive his writing process from mere observation, attention, and curiosity.
Living abroad for the first time, Pavone devoted much of his free time to writing his first full-length manuscript. He drew directly from his experience and began writing a domestic drama, but he felt that it lacked propulsion. The project changed direction when he found himself speaking to an expatriate mother who seemed very secretive and guarded about her background (MacDonald, Jay. “Chris Pavone: The Secret Life of Mrs. Moore.” BookPage, Mar. 2012.) From there, he began to imagine the different kinds of secrets an expatriate could have and changed the gender of his protagonist from male to female, believing that men could not fit into the world of expatriate mothers and housewives. The possibility that his main character could be a retired spy keeping secrets from her husband excited Pavone. This raised questions about truth, lies, and marriage that deeply compelled him as he wrote his novel.
With the breakout success of his debut, which won both the Edgar Award and the Anthony Award, Pavone continued to establish himself as a writer of spy thrillers, including several of the characters from The Expats in his later works. Pavone’s next novel, The Accident (2014), follows Hayden Gray, a supporting character from The Expats, in an action-packed adventure set in the world of literary publishing. In 2019, Pavone wrote and published a direct sequel to The Expats entitled The Paris Diversion. His other books, The Travelers (2016) and Two Nights in Lisbon (2022), similarly follow married couples who fall into the lives of espionage.
Geographical Context: Luxembourg
The Expats is set in Luxembourg, which not only draws from author Chris Pavone’s personal experience but also plays a significant role in developing the plot of the novel. Financial services comprise the duchy’s biggest industrial sector, accounting for around one-third of its jobs (Grunwald, Aaron. “Nearly a Third of Jobs in Luxembourg Linked to Financial Sector.” Delano, 2023). This has attracted many international clients to conduct business within its borders. It also ties in directly with the inciting incident of Pavone’s novel: The protagonist’s husband, Dexter Moore, is offered a lucrative role at a Luxembourg-based bank.
However, as the novel transpires, it becomes clear that Dexter has come to Luxembourg to exploit other unique advantages offered by the duchy’s advanced financial sector. Luxembourg is well-known for its financial secrecy, allowing many of its clients to conduct high-value transactions and store assets without fear of scrutiny or taxation. In fact, Luxembourg is consistently listed as one of the world’s major tax havens, offering lower tax rates to investors who declare their legal home outside of the country where they are doing business. This became a point of contention that forced the duchy to adopt new laws that would improve its taxing standards in the eyes of the international community. Nevertheless, Luxembourg has remained a hub for low-tax financial services, consequently allowing it to stand as one of the most developed banking centers in the world.
When the novel’s protagonist, Kate Moore, is made aware of the possibility that her husband, Dexter, has stolen millions of euros, she begins to realize that the move to Luxembourg was intended to evade arrest, as well as the attention of the US taxation authority, the Internal Revenue Service.
