The Old Boys

By Charles McCarry

More information to be announced soon on this forthcoming title from Penguin USA.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Penguin Group
• Release date: Jun 3, 2004
• ISBN: 9781468300307

Charles McCarry

A former operative for the CIA, Charles McCarry (b. 1930) is America’s most revered author of espionage fiction. Born in Massachusetts, 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 which he traveled the globe as a deep cover operative. He left the Agency in 1967, and set about converting his experiences into fiction. His first novel, The Miernik Dossier (1971), introduced Paul Christopher, an American spy who struggles to balance his family life with his work. McCarry has continued writing about Christopher and his family for decades, producing ten novels in the series to date. A former editor-at-large for National Geographic, McCarry has written extensive nonfiction, and continues to write essays and book reviews for various national publications. Ark (2011) is his most recent novel.

Reviews for The Old Boys

[hardlyhardy · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

As a younger man, my idea of a great spy novel was Robert Littell's "The Amateur" (1981) or James Grady's "Six Days of the Condor" (1974), tales about young men, inexperienced in the ways of espionage agents, who get the best of veterans. Now, an "old boy" myself, I am nuts about "Old Boys" (2004), written by Charles McCarry when he was about the same age I am now. His novel is about veteran CIA agents who should be retired but instead team up to find an old friend (and his mother) and prevent a nuclear terrorist attack on U.S. cities.So maybe my taste in espionage thrillers is a reflection of my stage of life, why I would rather watch movies starring Robert Redford, Tom Hanks, Morgan Freeman or Harrison Ford than ones starring any younger actor you might name. Or maybe all three are terrific novels. When I reread "Six Days of the Condor" recently, I enjoyed it just as much as I did back in the Seventies.McCarry has been writing Paul Christopher novels since the Seventies (and I loved "The Tears of Autumn" and "The Secret Lovers," too). In Old Boys, Christopher is in his seventies when he learns that his mother, who disappeared during World War II, may still be alive. And so he disappears, too. When ashes purported to be his are sent back from China, his old friends don't believe it. Horace Hubbard, Christopher's cousin, takes the lead, and he and the other geezers travel back and forth across the globe tracking down the Christophers, while at the same time preventing an even older terrorist from getting his dying wish, the destruction of America.The novel includes a reference to The Over the Hill Gang. This story is similar to that old movie, but without the laughs. These Old Boys manage to stay a step ahead of much younger men, who keep trying to discourage them and send them back to retirement homes. Of these younger agents, McCarry writes, "Little did they know that they had just been extricated from the mess they had gotten themselves into by a bunch of arthritic, pill-taking old men who last saw combat before these kids' fathers were born."As an arthritic, pill-taking old man, I found that great fun.

[kerns222 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

What happened Mr. McCarry? This is a simple-minded action flick, nothing like your old work. The characters coud be cartoons. The explosions are big, locals exotic, and villians more Bond-like than your old adversaries. Did you really write this?

[elleneer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting how cleverly McCarrey introduces "radical" interpretation of the historical Christ through the guise of a newly found, ancient scroll.

[mswallack_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A very enjoyable novel about a group of old spies out for one last mission. I particularly liked the main character, especially his way of describing his own actions in a "modest" way; in other words, he is very good at what he does, but tries to conceal this to some extent. The book reminded me of the existence of Charles McCarry who wrote some of the best American spy novels of all time (especially The Last Supper and The Tears of Autumn).

[dougwood57 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

McCarry (Tears of Autumn) comes out of retirement and brings back the Old Boys from 'The Outfit' (aka the CIA). His storied agent Paul Christopher comes back from the dead - well, once at least. The Old Boys are a bunch of retired spooks trying to find Christopher and the terrorist Ibn Awad and something called the Amphora Scroll - a Roman document from an Imperial agent in Palestine regarding the exploitation of the activities of one Joshua ben Joseph - aka Jesus. Christopher is seeking his now 94-year-old mother and guess what she has. The story traces her history as Reinhard Heydrich's involuntary concubine, her escape, and her life in hiding in southwest Asia. Back in the present Paul's cousin, Horace Hubbard leads the search for Christopher and Ibn Awad...oh, and of course the nukes. The story leads across just about every continent and several historical eras, which is both part of its charm and its weakness. Things get a might complicated and the plot is stretched, but it's a good tale with a funny twist at the end. Recommended for fans of the spy and adventure genres.