You know, spy movies weren’t always wall-to-wall vacation porn. There was a time when a hero could go undercover and save the world, or at least some microfilm, without trotting all over the globe, trysting in fancy hotels, wrecking pricey cars and drinking top shelf booze. But thanks largely to the blockbuster films of James Bond, tales of subterfuge became synonymous with opulent power fantasies, where the hero is a suave and sophisticated sex god with an unlimited expense account.

Julian Farino’s “The Union” has a different premise. It’s about a secret organization called “The Union,” which, unlike the elitist and bureaucratic FBI and CIA, actually gets all the work done. They don’t recruit Ivy League graduates, they recruit blue collar workers — “Street smarts over book smarts.” In an era where the people running things don’t know how to make anything run, it’s a...