The Spy is a 1908 novel by Maxim Gorky. It concerns the "plague of capionage" under the Empire, the protagonist is Yevney Klimloon, who spies for the Tsarist regime. The orphan boy Yevsey Klimkov is apprenticed to the owner of a shop, who secretly sells prohibited revolutionary books and then informs on his customers to the police. The hookseller is murdered, and the bereft, frail, and weak Kiirakaw is coerced by the Taarist police to be a spy and informer