Second Sight is seventh in the series that follows the legendary spy Paul Christopher-a man ensnared by a line of work that never failed to exert its insidious influence outside professional boundaries. Now retired and living the quiet life as a loving husband in Washington, D.C., Christopher has survived battlefields of World War II, undercover Cold War killing grounds, and imprisonment in China. But now, throughout the Arab world, U.S. agents are being kidnapped and brain- drained by an unidentified enemy armed with a diabolical new drug. Christopher's old friend and superior in "the Outfit" calls with a command he feels he must obey. But what begins for Christopher as a global manhunt swiftly turns into something far closer to home. For the key to the danger he must defuse is a secret buried deep in his own perilous past.

Minutes after the handoff, the courier's spine is neatly snapped by an impact with a passing black sedan. Meanwhile in Rome, Christopher's wife Cathy takes a famous film director as a lover to stir her husband out of the stoicism that defines his personality. These two seemingly discrete events set in motion a spiral of operational and personal intrigue that leads Christopher from meetings with an aging agent in the cafes of old Europe to a rendezvous with an operative on the front lines of the Cold War in the Congo as he secretly arranges the publication of a novel that could bring the Soviet system to its knees and races to identify the leak that compromised the messenger—and possibly his entire mission. The Secret Lovers is McCarry at his best—an exploration of the epic scope of "the great game," but also a riveting psychological portrait of a man ensnared by a profession that never failed to exert its insidious influence outside the professional boundaries that,...

In his magnificent new novel, with rights sold in six countries before publication, McCarry returns to the world of his legendary character, Paul Christopher, the crack intelligence agent who is as skilled at choosing a fine wine as he is at tradecraft, at once elegant and dangerous, sophisticated and rough-and-ready. As the novel begins, Paul Christopher, now an aging but remarkably fit 70ish, is dining at home with his cousin Horace, also an ex-agent. Dinner is delicious and uneventful. A day later, Paul has vanished. The months pass, Paul's ashes are delivered by a Chinese official to the American consulate in Beijing and a memorial service is held in Washington. But Horace is not convinced that Paul is dead and, enlisting the support of four other retired colleagues—a sort of all-star backfield of the old Outfit—Horace gets the "Old Boys" back in the game to find Paul Christopher. Harassed by American intelligence, hunted by terrorists, Horace Christopher and the...

Earth's wealthiest man attempts to save humanity from a coming apocalypse The planet's first and only trillionaire, Henry Peel, did not make his fortune by being a fool. A gifted inventor and scientist, he possesses an imagination on the scale of history's greatest thinkers, and he has turned it to the problem of Earth's core. Two decades ago, scientists learned that the core spins faster than the rest of the planet, storing up a cache of energy that, if released, could cause an earthquake that would obliterate human life. To begin mankind anew, Henry Peel is going to lead us to the stars.   He gathers the world's leading physicists and engineers and asks them to design a spaceship large enough to safeguard a sample of humanity and durable enough to survive a thousand-year voyage. Money is no object, but time is short. The apocalypse is on its way.

On a rainy night in Paris, Paul Christopher's lover Molly Benson falls victim to a vehicular homicide minutes after Christopher boards a jet bound for Vietnam. To explain this senseless murder, The Last Supper goes back not only to the earliest days of Christopher's life, but also to the origins of the CIA. Moving seamlessly from tales of refugee smuggling in Nazi Germany to OSS-coordinated guerrilla warfare in Burma and the confusion of the Vietnam War, McCarry creates an intimate history of this shadow-world of deceit and betrayal.

There is currently no description available for this title at this time.From Publishers WeeklyMcCarry is another ace spy novelist from the past to whom Overlook's Peter Mayer is giving a new lease on life (as with Robert Littell's The Company two years ago). Both of them are real pros, with McCarry having a more lapidary style and a rather more aristocratic turn of mind. His "old boys," former CIA men who come out of retirement to help one of their former colleagues, Horace Hubbard, find his lost cousin, Paul Christopher, are a classy group, each with a well-defined area of expertise. Christopher, an elderly agent himself (he starred in some of McCarry's earlier books, most notably in The Tears of Autumn), has disappeared, and apparently died, in a remote area of China. His ashes are sent back to the U.S. by the Chinese, and a memorial service is held. But Horace cannot believe he is dead, and nor can Paul's daughter, Zarah. As they set out on Christopher's trail, they find it leads to his remarkable mother, Lori, who was probably involved in the assassination of Nazi kingpin Heydrich in WWII and kept as a legacy of that monster a priceless scroll in his possession depicting the death of Christ from a Roman agent's viewpoint. The plot is almost indescribable, involving a Muslim terrorist who wants the scroll and who plans to blow up much of the West with a cache of miniature Soviet nuclear bombs; a Chinese forced-labor camp; and sundry ex-Nazis, ex-KGB men and double-crossers galore. It's a great tribute to McCarry's skill that he manages to keep all his colored balls in the air and carry the reader willingly with him. But the kitchen-sink approach to the plot increasingly strains credibility as the story zips along, and the tension between his all-too-believable "old boys" and the comic-book action is never satisfactorily resolved. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. From BooklistMcCarry's latest is an old-fashioned, rollicking adventure that beats Ludlum and Cussler at their own game. When Paul Christopher, the enigmatic hero of several earlier McCarry novels, disappears while on a quest for his nonagenarian mother, Lori, his black-sheep cousin, Horace Hubbard, convenes a discreet cadre of over-the-hill spies to find their confrere--and to save the world from Ib'n Awad, an aging Islamic terrorist in possession of 12 nuclear suitcase bombs. In a beguiling twist sure to appeal to fans of The Da Vinci Code, all parties also seek a fabled ancient scroll that unmasks Jesus as an agent provocateur, handled by Judas for Roman spymaster Paul. The nonstop peregrinations of this league of extraordinary spooks take them to a score of exotic locales, pitting them against Chechen thugs, Chinese secret police, Nazi doctors, and a case of acute myocardial fibrillation. McCarry's commitment to this fanciful premise is absolute, and the resulting yarn combines the intrepid exploits of John Buchan, the cagey intrigue of Eric Ambler, and the clipped cadences of Dashiell Hammett. Tremendous fun. David WrightCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Since his reemergence with the publication of The Old Boys, Charles McCarry has been heralded as one of the few espionage writers whose books break out of the genre to shine as brilliant novels. The Secret Lovers is a McCarry tale at its finest– an exploration of the spying game, but also a riveting psychological portrait of a man ensnared by his own profession. A courier delivers a dissident Russian manuscript to Paul Christopher early one morning in West Berlin; minutes later, the courier is dead. Meanwhile in Rome, Christopher’s wife takes a lover to stir her husband out of his stoicism. These two seemingly discrete events set in motion a spiral of Cold War intrigue, both personal and political, that leads Christopher from Europe to the Congo. In this relentlessly suspenseful novel, McCarry, who "surpasses Len Deighton and John le Carre" (Washington Post), builds his multilayered story to a outstandingly satisfying end.

Author of The Tears of Autumn and The Shanghai Factor, Charles McCarry is widely regarded as one of the finest modern espionage novelists. His latest masterpiece, The Mulberry Bush, burns with the fury of the wronged, as personal vendetta and political idealism collide.In a rose garden in Buenos Aires, an unnamed American spy meets the beautiful daughter of a famous Argentinean revolutionary. He becomes infatuated, and so does she. But he is no ordinary spy—he is an off-the-books lone wolf who spent his first five years working for “Headquarters" hunting terrorists in the Middle East. Unbeknownst to his lenient handlers, he is loyal to a hidden agenda: to avenge his father, who was laughed out of Headquarters many years before. In the sultry young Argentinean, the spy thinks he has found an ally. Like his father, her parents also met a terrible fate. But as his path becomes further entwined with hers, the spy finds himself caught in a...

Since his reemergence with the publication of Old Boys, Charles McCarry has been heralded as one of the select few novelists of espionage who manage to break out of his genre to shine as a brilliant and unique novelist. Second Sight is seventh in the series that follows the legendary spy Paul Christopher-a man ensnared by a line of work that never failed to exert its insidious influence outside professional boundaries. Now retired and living the quiet life as a loving husband in Washington, D.C., Christopher has survived battlefields of World War II, undercover Cold War killing grounds, and imprisonment in China. But now, throughout the Arab world, U.S. agents are being kidnapped and brain- drained by an unidentified enemy armed with a diabolical new drug. Christopher's old friend and superior in "the Outfit" calls with a command he feels he must obey. But what begins for Christopher as a global manhunt swiftly turns into something far closer to home. For the key to...

The first presidential election of the twenty-first century, bitterly contested by two men who are implacable political rivals but lifelong personal friends, is stolen through computer fraud. On the eve of the Inauguration the losing candidate presents proof of the crime to his opponent, the incumbent President, and demands that he stand aside. The winner refuses and takes the oath of office, thereby setting in motion what may destroy him and his party, and even bring down the Constitution.From this crisis, master storyteller Charles McCarry, author of such classic thrillers as The Tears of Autumn and The Last Supper weaves a masterpiece of political intrigue. Shelley's Heart is so gripping in its realism and so striking in its foresight that McCarry's devoted readers may view this tale of love, murder, betrayal, and life-or-death struggles for the political soul of America as an act of prophecy.

Born in squalid London at the turn of the eighteenth century, a girl makes a fresh start in the New World Fanny's father, Henry Harding, has known Oliver Barebones since the two men were children. Together they survived the Great Plague and the Great Fire, and now they are rich, middle-aged, and unmarried. Everyone's shocked when Oliver, a lifelong bachelor, falls headfirst for a superstitious young girl named Rose. In two days he's decided to marry her. For the Hardings and the Barebones, it will be years before they find such happiness again.   Ruin comes to them all in the shape of Alfred Montagu, a cold-hearted moneylender who ensnares them in crushing debt and schemes to marry Fanny. After her father dies, Fanny attempts to take refuge in France. It's not far enough to escape her troubles, so with Oliver and Rose, she departs for a far-off place called Connecticut, dodging Montagu by diving into the teeth of dangers no London girl could ever imagine.

The KGB grooms a charming young American to run for president Although in the mid-1940s no one had ever heard of JFK, Jack Adams's mother insisted her new son be christened John Fitzgerald. Years after his parents' death, Jack learns the reason for his name: a packet of photos showing his mother in bed with young John Kennedy. As a student at Columbia University, Jack demonstrates that he inherited more than JFK's good looks. His irresistible charisma and political instinct make him a natural campus leader, but he has his sights set on something bigger than the student council. Young Jack Adams wants to be president of the United States, and the Soviet Union is prepared to help.   A KGB spy named Dmitri recruits Jack, promising him the presidency in exchange for treason. Dmitri guides Jack for decades, putting him in a position to become the largest intelligence coup in history—unless the candidate's libido derails him first.

Now back in print, the prophetic thriller from "the best writer of intelligence and political novels in the world" (The Boston Globe)When Charles McCarry's The Better Angels was first published almost 30 years ago, its premise—that terrorists would use passenger-filled airliners as tools of terror—seemed incredible. In retrospect, the novel would prove to be prophetic.The Better Angels takes place in an election year close to the turn of the century in a deeply polarized America. The presidential race matches a tall, lantern-jawed liberal to a far-right former businessman with deep ties to the energy industry. Meanwhile, Islamic terrorists led by an oil-rich Arab prince, desperate to acquire nuclear bombs to use against Israel or major American cities, disrupt the presidential campaign through a series of bloody suicide bombing. Finally the election itself is stolen, as one side hacks into computerized voting systems to change the...