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Read Old Boys (2005)

Old Boys (2005)

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Rating
3.81 of 5 Votes: 2
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ISBN
0143035495 (ISBN13: 9780143035497)
Language
English
Publisher
penguin books

Old Boys (2005) - Plot & Excerpts

Charles McCarry has been writing his Paul Christopher novels for forty years. I've read several of the novels over the past twenty-eight years - going back to high school. When I started the series I was a teenager and the Soviet Union still existed. Both are now gone, but Charles McCarry is still writing about his Cold War creation. Interestingly a creation that he has allowed to age and continue into the present. No more Cold War, no more Soviets and a world wide situation that is just as messy, but lacking the comfortable division of East vs. West. In "Old Boys" McCarry goes with a different perspective. That of Horace Hubbard, Paul's cousin. Paul Christopher goes missing, believed to have died in Western China, though all that is returned is his ashes. Not believing that Paul is dead and having learned of a new terrorist threat to the U.S. ,and possibly the spiritual bedrock of western civilization, Horace gets together a group of retired agents (the Old Boys of the title) and they set off on their own private covert operation. As stories goes this one lacks the melancholy that pervades throughout most of the other Christopher novels. "Old Boys" is more of an action/adventure novel with a little bit of "The Da Vinci Code" thrown in for fun. The protagonists crisscross the globe getting into one sticky situation after another in various "exotic" locales. The entire story takes place in about a month and for a McCarry novel there is a large amount of daring-do thrown into the plot. It moves along at a quick pace and it isn't very demanding. There is some usual implausible stuff (requiring some of that old "suspension of disbelief") in which a group of long retired operatives are able to make contact with old sources and former double agents (some barely alive, but still alive) and get all types of intelligence that leads them to the Big Bad as well as answers to a mystery that has plagued Paul Christopher for most of his life. I read it in five to ten minute snippets and never felt like I was lost or had to go back several chapters to figure out who everybody was again. Like I said it's not a typical Paul Christopher novel, but then Paul Christopher is basically a supporting character in this one.A couple reviewers have speculated that this novel was ghost written, but I would have to disagree. There are moments ,throughout the book, that the old Charles McCarry style can be found. This isn't the first time that McCarry has gone with a different narrative perspective (See "The Miernik Dossier") and in this case the story is a first person narrative by Horace. As Horace himself states at the start of the story he isn't Paul Christopher and that difference makes more a very different feel. As spy novels go "Old Boys" is okay. More typical of American style espionage fiction and less British than some of the earlier entries, but still not a bad entry into the genre. You'll notice that this one I put on my beach read shelf and there it belongs. For me it's a good novel to read in the mornings when we're at a hotel on trip. I typically wake up several hours before the rest of the family and find myself down in the lobby reading and drinking horrible complimentary coffee. I want a novel that won't make me think (too) much and will help while away the hours until everyone has arisen."Old Boys" fits that requirement.

McCarry was always one of my favorites in the age of the Cold War thriller (in books like The Last Supper and The Tears of Autumn). This one is maybe not as good as Le Carre’s one about “old spies” (Absolute Friends) but it’s good and I enjoyed it a lot. Basically it’s the story of 5 old spies, superannuated from the CIA, who join forces to find another one of them who’s disappeared and been reported dead in Western China. They don’t believe it and set out to find him. They’re all 60ish or more—one has to reach for his nitro pills when eluding militant Russians who want to kill him as he comes down the stairs from the apartment of an informer—he later takes a brief respite in the US to get a pacemaker installed before proceeding toKyrgystan and the novel's denouement in the desert.They’re searching for Paul Christopher (spy-hero of earlier novels, like the rest out to pasture at 70). He’s off because someone brought word that his mother who was kidnapped by the Nazi commander, Heydrich, in WWII when Paul was a teenager, and then never seen again, has surfaced and is in danger. She’s 94. Paul left his friend and cousin, Horace Hubbard, the leader of the old boys, a cryptic letter and a clue to find a hidden safe in his house. There Horace finds a painting (one he’s always hated but worth a million on more) he’s to sell to finance the romp. Eventually Christopher’s daughter Zarah joins the tribe. The enemies are the Chinese secret service (Christopher spend 10 years in a Chinese prison camp in his earlier life), Russian mafia (i.e., ex, KGB), an old Arab millionaire named Ibn Awad who’s stolen some dirty bombs from the Russians which he plans to unleash on American cities. Then there’s Kevin (with his Ohio accent) whose loyalties no one is ever very sure of, though he's mostly likely an American gray (unacknowledged) force or some variation of Russian freelancer.There’s a subplot that maybe imitates (or covers similar ground as) The Da Vinci Code: the Amphora Scroll, a Roman document hidden in a jar that “proves” that Jesus of Nazareth was an unwitting agent of Roman Intelligence. Lori Christopher (the 94-year old mother) stole it from Heydrich and hid out in the remote reaches of the Taklimakan desert most of her life to keep it away from anyone likely to exploit it. Ibn Awad, he with the dirty bombs, now wants it to discredit Christianity.The best parts feature the doings of the old boys themselves. Both the Amphora Scroll and the long-lost Lori Christopher plots peter out by the end and the reader doesn’t much care.

What do You think about Old Boys (2005)?

Paul Christopher is the subject of this book, but he's missing and being sought by a group of former spooks lead by his nephew Horace Hubbard, who had been disgraced from the service in an earlier book.This McCarry novel reintroduces Lori Christopher and Zarah Christopher, and leads the Old Boys all over the world playing a deadly game of mystery and intrigue suggested by Paul Christopher before his disappearance.McCarry really impresses me with his subplots and knowledge of falconing, Cold War politics and intelligence services and Biblical arcana. How could he compress all that knowledge into a readable espionage book? He does.
—Tom

The "Outfit", The Insiders Name For The CIA, 20 Mar 2006 "THE BRITISH ARE generally considered the nonpareils in foreign-intrigue literature. Although they didn't invent the genre, they perfected it, and are credited with the first spy novel that can be considered serious literature, Erskine Childers' still enthralling 1903 classic, The Riddle of the Sands." Morton MarcusThe most enthralling spy novels, I think come from the British. This is my first introduction to Charles McCarry. I know not why, he is one of the best, and I read this novel on advice from an "inside" friend. "McCarry is now a bit of an old boy himself: 75, to be precise. As a young man, 1957 to 1967, he served as a CIA agent, under 'deep cover'. This is not, apparently, quite as exciting or dangerous as it sounds. However, it certainly provided the man with some inside information, which he evidently puts to good use> He tells us that "the mode is the message”, and we would be wise to follow his lead."Horace Hubbard one of the "Old Boys" has put out word that his cousin, Paul Christopher, is missing and that the network of Old Boys needs to meet and discuss. Paul, also an 'Old Boy' had talked with Horace a year earlier about finding his safe if he were to come up missing. The time is now, the safe has been found, and the Old Boys need to continue Paul's search. Paul is certain that his mother, who went missing when Paul was a wee lad, is alive and has with her an old religious Roman scroll. She was captured by the German Nazis and there had been some sightings but never anything certain. So, starts the search all over the world. Russia, US, China, Budapest, Frankfurt, and the deserts of North Africa, where camels are killed. Yes camels and for a darn good reason. Money is used to bribe everyone and success comes but not without a cost.McCarry's 1995 novel, "Shelley's Heart," describes the events surrounding the presidential election that would take place five years later. In Mr. McCarry's fictional world, the 2000 elections result in a Senate that is split 50-50 and a disputed outcome that hangs on a few thousand votes in a single state. An impeachment also figures in the tale. The state in question is Illinois, not Florida, but this bit of literary license can be forgiven, considering Illinois' long tradition of voter fraud. The title of the book, by the way, derives from the name of a fictional secret society at Yale that is central to the events surrounding Mr. McCarry's fictional anticipation of the 2000 election--a hint, perhaps, of the all-Skull-&-Bones contest looming in 2004. So, we wonder, does McCarry really forecast the future Will the story in "Old Boys" come true?This is a fast paced novel that moves quickly and tells the story with fine detail. It could not be put down. These “Old Boys” come close to finding the truth and Paul’s mom. I want them on my side. How does a woman get into the “Old Boys” club, or does she?Highly Recommended. prisrob 3-20-06
—Pris robichaud

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