The Secret Lovers
An American spy confronts personal and political intrigues when he obtains a Russian dissident's explosive manuscript in this Cold War spy thriller.
In West Berlin, CIA agent Paul Christopher receives a dissident Russian novelist's handwritten manuscript from a nervous courier. Minutes after the handoff, the courier's spine is nearly snapped by 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 his cool and unfeeling stoicism.
These two seemingly discrete events set in motion a spiral of operational and personal intrigue that leads Christopher from clandestine meetings in the cafes of old Europe to a rendezvous with an operative on the front lines of the Cold War in the Congo. All the while, 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.
Charles McCarry
Charles McCarry worked under deep cover as a CIA operations officer in Europe, Asia, and Africa. He is the author of thirteen critically acclaimed novels, including The Shanghai Factor and the classic spy thriller The Tears of Autumn, as well as numerous works of nonfiction.
Born in Massachusetts in 1930, McCarry began his writing career in the army, as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes. In the 1950s he served as a speechwriter for President Eisenhower before taking a post with the CIA, for whom he traveled the globe as a deep cover operative. He left the Agency in 1967, and set about converting his experiences into fiction.
Paul Christopher
Paul Christopher consists of ten books. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
