tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2489078438568088729.post3234582968334053656..comments2023-10-31T08:00:03.411-05:00Comments on BLUES BOOZE BOOKS AND BOBS: A Most Wanted Man by John Le CarreWILLIAM T. VOGT, JR.http://www.blogger.com/profile/00917538962756196970noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2489078438568088729.post-90076856498396702252010-01-09T13:37:19.703-06:002010-01-09T13:37:19.703-06:00I just emailed you about Charles McCarry, then got...I just emailed you about Charles McCarry, then got to this blog item and decided to elaborate here.<br /><br />The following I lifted from a review, but it well summarizes my experience with McCarry. IMO, he easily surpasses Le Carre, my former gold standard.<br /><br /><< McCarry is beyond Le Carré in vision and purpose and is producing some of the best, most readable and provocative literature today. In a word, he has set himself the task of recording the hopes, dreams, frailties and mistakes of several generations of Americans whose decisions have determined the course of 20th-century history.<br /><br />Such journalists and novelists as Richard Condon, John Gardner, Tom Wicker, George V. Higgins and Christopher Buckley have praised McCarry's novels with equally glowing remarks, while Peter Lewis, writing in Britain's The Daily Mail, said that McCarry "ranks up there with [John] Le Carré in a select class of two."<br /><br />In The Tears of Autumn (1974), McCarry's lone bestseller, Christopher travels around the globe in an attempt to unearth a shadowy conspiracy of increasingly terrifying dimensions, which turns out to be the assassination of John F. Kennedy--and the theory presented in the book is not only credible but fascinating to consider.<br /><br />In The Secret Lovers (1977), Christopher falls in love with and marries the beautiful Cathy. Set in Rome, the novel revolves around a highly explosive manuscript that has been smuggled out of the Soviet Union, a manuscript that Christopher knows the CIA will want published. Publication, however, will put the writer's life in danger, an eventuality that Christopher has pledged to prevent.<br /><br />Ostensibly a love story, The Secret Lovers examines how the pressures and allegiances of intelligence work affect the lives of everyone with whom the spy comes into contact. Magnificent and chilling, the book, like the others, looks unflinchingly at what we do to each other in the name of job and country. In the end, it is clear that the novel's seemingly innocent title can be read at least two ways, both of them ironically suggestive. Are the characters secretly in love--or are they really lovers of secrets?<br /><br />The final installment in the Christopher series, The Last Supper (1983)--which Richard Condon claims is "like no other spy novel ever written"--unites all the characters of the previous novels and all the subjects referred to in them, to give not only a complete biography of Christopher but also a history of the American intelligence community. It is a tour de force and a fitting end to the Paul Christopher saga. >>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com