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Caroline Carmichael #1
The Cutout
CUTOUT: A third person used to conceal the contact between two people. A pawn.
They were partners — lovers in a business where betrayal is a heartbeat away. CIA analyst Caroline Carmichael lost her husband Eric when his plane was blown out of the sky by an elite group of terrorists known as 30 April.
Now her dead husband has surfaced among those responsible for an explosion that rocks Berlin — and the brutal kidnapping of the U.S. Vice President. Uncertain of Eric's motives and loyalties, the Agency plays its last, best card: Eric's wife — the Cutout.
Is Eric a rogue agent gone bad? Or has he thrown himself under deep cover to terminate a ruthless psychopath? Caroline is drawn into a dizzying maze where one wrong turn will mean certain death ... and in which the Cutout will be the first to fall.
They were partners — lovers in a business where betrayal is a heartbeat away. CIA analyst Caroline Carmichael lost her husband Eric when his plane was blown out of the sky by an elite group of terrorists known as 30 April.
Now her dead husband has surfaced among those responsible for an explosion that rocks Berlin — and the brutal kidnapping of the U.S. Vice President. Uncertain of Eric's motives and loyalties, the Agency plays its last, best card: Eric's wife — the Cutout.
Is Eric a rogue agent gone bad? Or has he thrown himself under deep cover to terminate a ruthless psychopath? Caroline is drawn into a dizzying maze where one wrong turn will mean certain death ... and in which the Cutout will be the first to fall.
544 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
34 people are currently reading
368 people want to read
About the author
Francine Mathews
27 books312 followersFrancine Mathews was born in Binghamton, NY in 1963, the last of six girls. Her father was a retired general in the Air Force, her mother a beautiful woman who loved to dance. The family spent their summers on Cape Cod, where two of the Barron girls now live with their families; Francine's passion for Nantucket and the New England shoreline dates from her earliest memories. She grew up in Washington, D.C., and attended Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, a two hundred year-old Catholic school for girls that shares a wall with Georgetown University. Her father died of a heart attack during her freshman year.
In 1981, she started college at Princeton – one of the most formative experiences of her life. There she fenced for the club varsity team and learned to write news stories for The Daily Princetonian – a hobby that led to two part-time jobs as a journalist for The Miami Herald and The San Jose Mercury News. Francine majored in European History, studying Napoleonic France, and won an Arthur W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship in the Humanities in her senior year. But the course she remembers most vividly from her time at Princeton is "The Literature of Fact," taught by John McPhee, the Pulitzer Prize winning author and staff writer for The New Yorker. John influenced Francine's writing more than even she knows and certainly more than she is able to say.
Francine spent three years at Stanford pursuing a doctorate in history; she failed to write her dissertation (on the Brazilian Bar Association under authoritarianism; can you blame her?) and left with a Masters. She applied to the CIA, spent a year temping in Northern Virginia while the FBI asked inconvenient questions of everyone she had ever known, passed a polygraph test on her twenty-sixth birthday, and was immediately thrown into the Career Trainee program: Boot Camp for the Agency's Best and Brightest. Four years as an intelligence analyst at the CIA were profoundly fulfilling, the highlights being Francine's work on the Counter terrorism Center's investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, and sleeping on a horsehair mattress in a Spectre-era casino in the middle of Bratislava.
Another peak moment was her chance to debrief ex-President George Bush in Houston in 1993. But what she remembers most about the place are the extraordinary intelligence and dedication of most of the staff – many of them women – many of whom cannot be named.
She wrote her first book in 1992 and left the Agency a year later. Fifteen books have followed, along with sundry children, dogs, and houses. When she's not writing, she likes to ski, garden, needlepoint, and buy art.
In 1981, she started college at Princeton – one of the most formative experiences of her life. There she fenced for the club varsity team and learned to write news stories for The Daily Princetonian – a hobby that led to two part-time jobs as a journalist for The Miami Herald and The San Jose Mercury News. Francine majored in European History, studying Napoleonic France, and won an Arthur W. Mellon Foundation Fellowship in the Humanities in her senior year. But the course she remembers most vividly from her time at Princeton is "The Literature of Fact," taught by John McPhee, the Pulitzer Prize winning author and staff writer for The New Yorker. John influenced Francine's writing more than even she knows and certainly more than she is able to say.
Francine spent three years at Stanford pursuing a doctorate in history; she failed to write her dissertation (on the Brazilian Bar Association under authoritarianism; can you blame her?) and left with a Masters. She applied to the CIA, spent a year temping in Northern Virginia while the FBI asked inconvenient questions of everyone she had ever known, passed a polygraph test on her twenty-sixth birthday, and was immediately thrown into the Career Trainee program: Boot Camp for the Agency's Best and Brightest. Four years as an intelligence analyst at the CIA were profoundly fulfilling, the highlights being Francine's work on the Counter terrorism Center's investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, and sleeping on a horsehair mattress in a Spectre-era casino in the middle of Bratislava.
Another peak moment was her chance to debrief ex-President George Bush in Houston in 1993. But what she remembers most about the place are the extraordinary intelligence and dedication of most of the staff – many of them women – many of whom cannot be named.
She wrote her first book in 1992 and left the Agency a year later. Fifteen books have followed, along with sundry children, dogs, and houses. When she's not writing, she likes to ski, garden, needlepoint, and buy art.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
August 1, 2017
I was delighted to find a book by Francine Mathews at the Newberry Library Book Fair this past weekend because they are rather hard to find. First problem: the font is too small for my vision so eye weariness over 511 pages is unpleasant. Next time I start grabbing up books I will give them more than a cursory glance. I can adjust the font on my kindles and like it that way!
This is espionage/thriller book featuring strong female character nicknamed Mad Dog. And then there were 1,000 other characters. The presentation was choppy and at times seemed as though someone (like an editor?) had cut out large chunks and pasted them juxtaposed to action to give us poor readers sufficient background information for every thought/action. It gave new meaning to the title of the book, The Cutout.
Setting: Berlin --There was "a new chancellor in town" and a new building that required celebration and dedication by the US Vice President, Sophie Payne. She is a very sympathetic character with integrity throughout. The plaza is bombed and she is kidnapped.
OK...started describing the action and find I am unable to do it without spoilers.
Featured is a Croat war criminal guilty of some of the most unspeakable crimes against humanity, poised to unleash more death by way of false vaccines so he can rid Europe of the "mongrel races."
Reading it now 17 years after publication I would categorize it as dated.
This is espionage/thriller book featuring strong female character nicknamed Mad Dog. And then there were 1,000 other characters. The presentation was choppy and at times seemed as though someone (like an editor?) had cut out large chunks and pasted them juxtaposed to action to give us poor readers sufficient background information for every thought/action. It gave new meaning to the title of the book, The Cutout.
Setting: Berlin --There was "a new chancellor in town" and a new building that required celebration and dedication by the US Vice President, Sophie Payne. She is a very sympathetic character with integrity throughout. The plaza is bombed and she is kidnapped.
OK...started describing the action and find I am unable to do it without spoilers.
Featured is a Croat war criminal guilty of some of the most unspeakable crimes against humanity, poised to unleash more death by way of false vaccines so he can rid Europe of the "mongrel races."
Reading it now 17 years after publication I would categorize it as dated.
October 10, 2008
The lead agent in this espionage/suspense novel is also in the following book Blown. I love spy stories, and have spent the summer reading up on Le Carre novels, and then stumbled across Francine Mathews. I have my whole family hooked on her spy stories, they have all the elements that I love: well developed intelligent yet slightly troubled characters, multiple plot twist, and out of this world conclusions. I stayed up several nights to finish this one....
May 8, 2021
A cutout, in the spy world, is a go-between between two people such as an agent and his/her handler. Caroline will be the cutout between the CIA and her thought-to-be-dead husband while investigating a bombing and kidnapping of the vice-president in Berlin. It stretches the imagination a bit, but there's a lot of action.
June 13, 2024
Fantastic story line. Action & suspense throughout and a great ending. I think it’d be a good lead in to a sequel but this is my first book by this author. Highly recommend it. Shows the “dirty” business of intelligence gathering and the actions generated by it.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
February 2, 2019
First book by this author and I really enjoyed the plot
February 19, 2019
Wow! As good as Frederick Forsythe!
December 14, 2020
Great adventure
Could not stop reading! Really enjoyed the suspense and action of this engaging story. The characters are well rounded and the story is fast paced and easy to read.
I did have a major issue with the German language used - much of it was sadly incorrect.
Could not stop reading! Really enjoyed the suspense and action of this engaging story. The characters are well rounded and the story is fast paced and easy to read.
I did have a major issue with the German language used - much of it was sadly incorrect.
August 3, 2022
Intriguing and well thought out story line for a spy story.
December 19, 2023
Oh dear….Too many plots….too long…however, I will try another one of her spy novels.
August 19, 2024
This book just wasn’t it for me lol 🫠
August 16, 2008
A okay thriller that suffers from a serious flaw that is faced by many thrillers set in a current setting: over time the setting(s) become dated and that can seriously effect the novel. Cutout has a seriously dated feel that takes away from the seriousness of the novel. The political instability of Europe is somewhat out of place (it is now Russia not Germany that threatens Europe.) For all my criticism the plot in Cutout is well planned and contains constant and never ceasing suspense. The characters are okay: pretty much average. There are a few flaws which hurt the plot's credibility but nothing serious. The strength of Cutout is it's fast and tense suspense, and thus, the speed of plot propels Cutout on.
January 21, 2015
I read this book because I was interested in the sequel, Blown. While I wasn't particularly interested in this one, reviews for Blown suggested it was not stand alone. I have now completed both and in the end, I felt this was the far better book of the two. It was a quick simple read. While there were parts that I felt required a suspension of reality to make it believable, overall I enjoyed the adventure and the characters. The writing is not stellar and the editing is much to be desired, there were numerous errors that should have been caught and corrected. Overall, if you're looking for something quick and interesting, it's a good filler book.
June 14, 2016
If this was indeed Mathews first novel, it is a remarkable tour-d-force. The cutout is a CIA analyst and the focus is upon her dead (?) husband who had been a chief of station as well as a covert operations agent. Now everyone is searching for the VP of the US. Neo-Nazis, German government interference, and terrorists from the Balkans, near East and the accused are Turkish aliens. Full of suspense, romance, gore, greed & revenge.
Not sure if this constitutes a spoiler, but will check for safety.
Not sure if this constitutes a spoiler, but will check for safety.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 23, 2009
I just finished the book and I would definitely read another book by this author. The book was really interesting from a historical perspective, especially since it is about international terrorism and was written before 9/11. It gives an interesting look at what we thought the dangers were at that time. Also the storyline moved well and kept my attention and the characters were great.
July 20, 2010
A complicated plot that involves a kidnapping of the VP of the US. The author brings too many minor characters into the story and this makes it hard to keep everyone straight. Not all that entertaining
November 8, 2013
Wanted to enjoy this more than I actually did. Somewhat over-written, and it never achieved the believability of Le Carre or McCarry...much more of a Bond-ian super-villian type of the thriller. Good for a plane ride, but ultimately kind of disposable.
October 7, 2015
A well written, albeit somewhat melancholy, spy novel. I liked the several strong female characters:) The conclusion appeared to be setting up for a sequel and the author did in fact produce one a few years later.
September 25, 2023
Francine Mathews gives me whiplash. I loved "Too Bad to Die", hated "Alibi", loved this book. Great plot, fast paced, good character development. I've read some of her Merry Folger books, and they read almost like cozy mysteries, really different from her spy thrillers.
December 28, 2023
Read this awhile ago and just adding it because I read the sequel. Pretty good secret agent story. Mathews is not gentle on her characters—they suffer and don’t always win, at least not fully. I think I remember it being pretty engaging.
September 20, 2008
Brave ending but otherwise a by the numbers thriller.
May 27, 2009
I have been reading to many books like this lately
September 3, 2009
probably not worth the time it takes to read it
January 23, 2010
A femaile CIA analyst learns that her case officer husband did not die but instead became a deep undercover agent with a terrorist group that kidnapped the Vice President.
February 1, 2010
I like a good spy novel. This one was good, not great.
December 12, 2010
I read this book because I read at the NPR website that this author had been a CIA analyst. Conclusion: Not very good.
June 23, 2011
A little long in the tooth but a great story and wonderful characters.
June 14, 2012
A fantastic story about a woman who works for the CIA. I always wondered about them, I know the author and she was a CIA analyst. She writes beautifully and the story flies off the pages.
July 2, 2012
Great spy novel
June 3, 2013
Very well written. The plot was exciting and just complicated enough. The characters were compelling.
December 20, 2012
Another good thriller set mainly in Berlin, Budapest and Sarajevo.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews