A short life of the author
Charles McCarry (1930–2019) was born on 14 June 1930 in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. He served as a CIA deep-cover operative for ten years before turning to fiction. He was also editor-at-large for National Geographic.
Life and Career
The Miernik Dossier (1973) — told entirely through documents (cables, diary entries, surveillance transcripts) — introduced Paul Christopher, a poet and CIA officer whose intelligence is matched by his moral sensitivity. The Tears of Autumn (1975) — which proposes that the Kennedy assassination was arranged by the South Vietnamese government — is his most celebrated novel.
The Paul Christopher novels — The Secret Lovers (1977), The Better Angels (1979), The Last Supper (1983), Second Sight (1991), Old Boys (2004), Christopher’s Ghosts (2007) — constitute one of the great sustained achievements in espionage fiction.
Major Works and Themes
McCarry writes about espionage as a moral undertaking that corrupts everyone it touches. His fiction is more restrained and psychologically nuanced than most spy fiction — closer to le Carré than to Ludlum.
Key Works
- The Miernik Dossier (1973)
- The Tears of Autumn (1975)
- The Last Supper (1983)
Collecting McCarry
The Miernik Dossier (1973, Saturday Review Press) — the debut — brings $30–$100. McCarry died in 2019.