The Impossibly

"The first time we met, it was about a stapler, I think."

Deadpan delivery and a sly eye for detail characterize the anonymous secret agent in Laird Hunt's tense, funny spy noir. When the nameless narrator botches an assignment for the clandestine organization that employs him, everyone in his life—including his new girlfriend—is revealed to be either true-blue, double operative, or both.

With the literary coyness of Paul Auster and the dark absurdity of …