The Better Angels

Paul Christopher #4

by Charles McCarry

While labeled a Paul Christopher book, the character does not appear.

Washington D.C. political thriller/espionage story in which Incumbent Frosty Lockwood and former president Franklin Mallory contest the last presidential election of the century amid increasingly compromising reports of the involvement of both in the death of the Arab world's spiritual leader. As election day approaches, U.S. intelligence works to find a nuclear weapon gone missing on the Arabian Peninsula while jihadists threaten the homeland.

The book accurately predicts the Olivia Nuzzi Affair.

Contrary to many online micro-reviews, the book does not predict 9/11. No commercial airliners are used as weapons.

Genres: Fiction, Espionage, Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Mystery, Politics, Novels

320 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

McCarry served in the United States Army, where he was a correspondent for Stars and Stripes, was a small-town newspaperman, and was a speechwriter in the Eisenhower administration. From 1958 to 1967 he worked for the CIA, under deep cover in Europe, Asia, and Africa. However, his cover was not as a writer or journalist.

McCarry was editor-at-large for National Geographic and contributed pieces to The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and other national publications.

McCarry was best known for a series of books concerning the life of super spy Paul Christopher. Born in Germany before WWII to a German mother and an American father, Christopher joins the CIA after the war and becomes one of its most effective spies. After launching an unauthorized investigation of the Kennedy assassination, Christopher becomes a pariah to the agency and a hunted man. Eventually, he spends ten years in a Chinese prison before being released and embarking on a solution to the mystery that has haunted him his entire life: the fate of his mother, who disappeared at the beginning of WWII. The books are notable for their historical detail and depiction of spycraft, as well as their careful and extensive examination of Christopher's relationship with his family, friends, wives, and lovers.

Reviews

[Franc · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've been a huge fan of McCarry and his Paul Christopher novels, but Better Angels is definitely a misstep for him. The lack of Paul Christopher isn’t the issue. Part of the problem is this book was published in 1978 and set in 1998 (something that is never quite clear at the outset.) And like all such novels set in the future that are now in the past, almost none of his predictions have come thru. For example: The CIA hasn’t been replaced KGB-to-FSB-style by a similar but re-lettered group called the FIS. The British aristocracy is not now forced to work as domestic help like the White Russians in Paris in the 20s. The world has not practically exhausted fossil fuels forcing the president to impose mandatory blackouts, not to mention the constitution must have been modified to give him powers such as this, or the power to force sterilization on those with low IQs. The US is not colonizing one of Jupiter's moons and nor harnessing an asteroid for mining, all while still unable to improve on the audio cassette tape in recording technology. So suspension of disbelief is a bit hard for us in 2015 to imagine these monumental changes to have happened by 1998 or even by today.

That said, this reads more like an Ayn Rand novel. Lots of black and white and not much of the grayness we expect from a good spy novelist such as McCarry. A John Gault-like but vengeful right wing ex-President is trying to defeat the current Pope John-Paul-like president, described by several characters as the “greatest person to ever become president.” Rich stuff.

The other issue of its datedness this that at the book’s core wrestling with a moral question: “Is it right for the PODUS to order an assassination of a terrorist to stop him from perpetuating an act of terrorism, in this case dropping nuclear bombs on Israel and NYC?” Most of the characters and the US electorate in the book seem to view this as murder on the part of the president; however, post 9/11 most Americans have come think the opposite and both Bush and Obama have embraced this policy.

[Jack Heath]

Synopsis: a liberal was running against a conservative for President in a race of death. Flamboyant characters including Paul Christopher.

[Michael Martz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This 40+ year old novel by master spy author Charles McCarry is unexpectedly timely. The story revolves around the assassination (or suicide) of an Arab leader who may or may not have had dirty bombs in his possession. The CIA (or rather, its successor organization established after investigations revealed wrongdoing) was rumored to be responsible, but in those long ago days before Twitter and all things electronic the media had to really dig to find out the truth. And, in the middle of all of it, there's a presidential election on the horizon. A major media guy gets a whiff of the possibility that the death wasn't a suicide and tracks point ultimately to the President, who had already disavowed any participation. Behind the scenes, the ex-president is scheming and the country awaits the contest between the current president and his predecessor.

What 'The Better Angels' is populated with is relationships, principally those surrounding the president's most important assistant, Julian Hubbard. There's his half-brother (a state department big-shot), a world famous TV news personality (with a personal hatred of Julian), the President (an all-around good guy with high principles), his opponent in the upcoming election (a former president with authoritarian tendencies), a Brit agent who gets around (often in a drunken state) and various wives and lovers. Their interactions lend an almost claustrophobic feel to the novel. As the mystery surrounding the Arab's death is slowly revealed, the nature of the personalities involved comes forward and people you thought you had a handle on end up being considerably different under pressure.

The dialogue is a bit dated, the pace is rather slow due to the depth of the back stories and interactions between the characters, and some of the investigatory work seems quaint compared to the tools available today, but overall this is a really interesting look at a realistic situation that one can picture happening (or has happened) in our lifetime. McCarry has written some great spy novels- this isn't his best but it's intricately plotted and well-written with strong characters.

[Douglas Sainsbury · Rating 4 out of 5]

THE BETTER ANGELS by Charles McCarry does not involve the hero in the Paul Christopher series, but it does center on some of Paul's relatives. The book was written in 1978, but is set in 1999. McCarry establishes the premise of the story early; it involves the murder by the US's secret intelligence agency that replaced the CIA of an Arab terrorist intent on acquiring nuclear weapons to use use against Israel and the US. The story unfolds in an election year with the former right wing President running against the current highly principled current President, Lockwood. Julian is the president's personal assistant and is an interesting character who anticipates Lockwood's thoughts and political positions. Julian's half-brother, Horace, is an agent of the US intelligence agency and is involved in the murder of the Arab. The plot includes a delicate balance between the half of the country that believes the US president was involved in a murder as he gave the approval and the other half of the country excuses the execution in the name of saving the country and maybe the world from WWIII. McCarry forecasts some events that actually transpired in the future from his perspective in 1978, but MARS has not yet been settled. I enjoyed the story, the competition between Lockwood and his challenger in the election campaign and the other pillar in the plot involving the conflicting views of the necessity of taking out an Arab terrorist. The plot plods at times and could be edited down by 10-15%, but the prose is strong as is always expected in a McCarry novel. I recommend the book.

[Saski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sadly I don’t even remember reading this, not even when I scan the quotes I found worth keeping. Note to self; write the review when you finish the book, not years later, sigh!

Quotes that caught my eye

Patrick, in his heart, thought that his own nation deserved to be extinct; the whole West, was dying at last of its appetites, like a rich drunk who refuses to give up bad habits and challenges his doctor to keep him alive. (10)

Even since, inflexibly, Julian had demanded the truth of others. It was a painful trait. Other key rules he had guessed correctly, from observing his father: drink only dry wines and good liquor, and drink everything sparingly; work very hard without letting others see the effort involved; think what you please, but never speak unkindly of another man; forget any woman who has stopped loving you. (25)

The air-conditioned room, the food on its heated plate, the ice cubes, awakened in Patrick the hatred he had felt all his life for his country, inventor of devices that on one needed but that every human being – even Hassan, even the silent guard ready to die for Hassan, certainly the beggars who had frightened Patrick with their sores – envied and coveted. Patrick himself, born poor, had done so. (41)

The youngster has received a draft notice. Sam wanted me to get the kid out of the draft without getting him into trouble with the law. Therefore I sent Sam and young Sam to a lawyer who specializes in Selective Service law – he can get any young man whose father has two thousand dollars for his fee out of the draft. Sam’s son will not be inducted in November, as scheduled. Think what that means, Julian. This boy won’t have to compromise his conscience, he’ll never have to kill an innocent Vietcong or himself be killed by one. But think further. Does the fact that this youngster has evaded the draft mean that the government will take one less young man in November? No, it does not. It means that some negro or some poor white will be drafted in his place and that young fellow will kill or be killed in the dirty war my friend Sam Rodgers has saved his son from. I pointed this out to Sam. Would you like to hear what Sam said to me? Sam said, “The what I’m doing for my son is politically correct. The black or the poor white boy who goes in his place will come back from that goddamned war a revolutionary!” that, Julian, is the beauty of idealism – it always finds a way to make others pay for its pleasures. (46)

…white damask and blue china and silver as thin as an old voice;… (50)

Traffic flowed up and down Capitol Hill as the working day ended, a rattle of breath through the diseased lung of the city. (63)

It amazed Julian; he had never had the gift of being excited by sexual experiences once they were over. He did not resist the feeling of responsibility for Caroline that her lust reawakened hi him. He was passionately interested in her. Caroline seemed to Julian, as she had always done, to be alive in a dimension that was inaccessible to him. He did not love her, but he observed her love for him, saw how much pain it gave her and how much pleasure, and he envied her – more, he entered her person, lived his emotional life through her. (65)

Philindros had been appointed to a ten-year term, and o president could relieve him before the end of his term or keep him after it expired. The head of intelligence had ceased serving at the pleasure of the President as one of the reforms that followed the CIA scandals of the seventies. (87)

…Lockwood had been in the presidency for only four months. Already he was very tired. He had just lost his first big fight in congress to undo some of Franklin Mallory’s cold-blooded work. Lockwood had asked for the repeal of a law, enact4ed during the Mallory Administration, under which every school child in American was screened, as a matter of routine, for signs of a criminal personality. The idea of drawing blood from children and countring their chromosomes, of examining the electrical patterns in their brains – of classifying them like so many laboratory animals – filled Lockwood with horror. “If we treat our children as suspects, how can we be free – how can America remain what it is?” he cried in a television address to the nation. But Lockwood had lost. “Do people want a police state?” he asked Julian.
“They want to be safe,” Julian replied.
“I thought they elected me because they saw the danger of being safe at any price,” Lockwood said. Then he had come down to Live Oaks to have a weekend of peace. (90)

The diplomatists put up with the spies because at that time only an embassy provided the things an intelligence service must have to operate abroad: secure storage of records, safe communications, untouchability of staff through diplomatic immunity. The computer had solved two of these problems. First, there was no longer any need to file paper; all information could be reduced to electronic impulses and stored in a central data bank. This information could be put beyond the reach of an enemy, could be erased by touching a button. Second, computer-related technology had produced radio equipment that could squirt a million words from one continent to another via satellite in a droplet of electric energy that required less than a millisecond to send or receive. Space from computer to Earthbound computer. No power had the resources to sort them all out, much less decode them. (106)

It’s hard to get passable green tea from Japan; most of them fertilize with chemicals now,… You’ve got to use oily fish and night soil to get the proper taste. (108)

…Emily faintly remembered the wide comfortable cars of her childhood. Everything had been bigger then – houses, cities, distances, portions of food. There had been more lights; windows white with them in the night. It wasn’t only growing up that had changed her perspective; the scale of all material objects had been reduced in her short lifetime because Earth was running out of materials, and therefore no one really had wealth any more. Money meant little: there was less and less that could be bought. (153)

Once, when he was a young officer, Horace had brought in a piece of information which the man then occupying the White House had not wanted to believe; it contradicted everything the president’s most trusted advisers had told him. He cared nothing that Horace had made a man die to get the information. (Thousands died every day; one of this Presidents’ advisers, a brilliant academic, had said that the total number of Americans killed in Vietnam was only equal to the number killed in highway crashes in the United States every year. ‘Hell,’ said the professor with a sardonic grin; ‘we can afford that; it’s small change.) (185)

Horace was often accosted by prostitutes of both sexes. A pair of young blacks, as fleet and implacable as Afghan bandits, attempted to rob him; Horace kicked one of them in the groin and boke the other’s forearm and left them both vomiting in pain on the pavement. A policeman watched the scene impassively from a parked cruiser; he was eating a got dog and licking mustard from his fingers. Under Lockwood’s policy of giving large federal grants to the leaders of racial minorities, this city, like most other large metropolitan areas in American, had fallen as completely under the control of blacks as in the past they had been in the grip of the white power elite. The black police force neither harassed nor protected the whites who still lived in guarded towers along the East River and on certain blocks of Fifth Avenue and Park Avenue that were the only ones on which lights still burned after dark. When men like Sebastian Laux ventured out of their sanctuaries, they went like the rich of the Renaissance into the perilous street of Florence, surrounded by liveried toughs in their private pay. (212-13)

“You know, this sort of art is over now,” Mallory said. “Beautiful as it always will be, it isn’t enough.”
“Isn’t enough? What is enough?”
“Humanity orbiting Jupiter. That was the greatest work of art in the history of man.”
“That was technology.”
“So is this Van Gogh. It was done with tools – brushes, a pallet knife. If ten thousand men create a form as beautiful as that ship, and send it hundreds of millions of miles into space with the human intelligence aboard, why is it less a work of art than anything Vincent ever did and sent into the future to us? Surely Humanity is as lovely as any cathedral ever made, and it has the power of infinite flight besides. It could sail for ever if we chose to let it do so. That isn’t art?” (265)

Susan seemed to receive some signal. Patrick knew that this house was webbed with invisible electronic devices. (265)

[Shary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in 1978, set during the Presidential election of 1999.

One political party describes itself as rationalists, who believe that technology is the answer to most problems, investing in space and other planets, and in some pretty gruesome measures (screening people for the potential for committing crimes and locking them away forever, aborting all babies of low-IQ people and more). Their candidate was in office before the current president narrowly won four years ago. The current president represents the Humanists, who care deeply for all people (well, except for the Rationalists) and the planet. Streetlights are extinguished at 10 pm, no hot water after dark, money directed toward minority groups who have taken charge of most cities. Crime is rampant. Rural vs. urban. Add in radical Islamic suicide bombers and a stolen election.

Three years ago, the current president ordered the assassination of an Islamic leader based on credible intelligence that he was about to give away suitcase-sized nuclear bombs to a radical group planning to kill millions in Israel. The details are about to be exposed, which could derail his re-election. (That's about the only thing the author got wrong about today's world. We cheer targeted drone executions of radical jihad leaders who want to kill us.)

The details seem more applicable to today than 1978. Sadly.

[False · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many readers-reviewers have noted this is not a Paul Christopher seried novel, and I have tried to remove that data from the entry. If it doesn't appear to take, I'll contact Good Reads and alert them to change it. No Paul Christopher in sight, unfortunately. Set in Washington, D.C. and New York, twenty years into the future from the original publishing date of 1979, it's an interesting take on the nature of intelligence services (NSA=No Such Agency,) America's political scene (and in this novel the character comes across as a physical John Edwards (such a creep) with our current President Cheetos in ideology. One passage about protecting oil interests over the environment sent chills. Of all of the females, computer whiz Rose came across as the most independent and solid female in the bunch...and she pops up again in the following sequel to this tale, "Shelley's Heart." The prophecies against suicide bombers and attacks on American soil have since come true. Elected power through Hitlerian demagogue personality has come true. I will be reading all of McCarry this year, having just discovered him. We'll see how it goes.

[Bernardas Gailius · Rating 5 out of 5]

Knyga išėjo XX a. aštuntajame dešimtmetyje. Tuo metu autoriaus išgalvojimas, kad teroristai naudoja keleivinius lėktuvus kaip ginklus, atrodė nesąmoningai nerealistiškas ir skaitytojams nepatiko. O po Rugsėjo 11-osios romaną pradėjo pristatinėti kaip "pranašišką trilerį".

Švelnus futurizmas (bandyta pamatyti apie dvidešimt metų pirmyn) iš tikrųjų teikia romanui žavesio. Fono detales (pvz., kad suvargusios Anglijos aristokratai tarnauja turtingų amerikiečių namuose) įdomu palyginti su jau žinoma tikrove. Ypač įdomi autoriaus interpretacija, koks baisus būtų JAV prezidentas a la Elonas Muskas, kurio šalininkai - "daugiausia dailiai apsirengę vyrai ir gražios moterys".

Bet iš tikrųjų tai knyga apie žvalgybą ir politiką. Ir apie sunkius sprendimus, kurie sudaro galios žaidimų esmę. Ir apie įvairius žmones, kurie tuos sprendimus priima visai nebūtinai būdami tam pasiruošę. Ir kad ta keista košė ir yra demokratija, kuria reikia džiaugtis ir kurią tenka ginti. Ir čia Charles McCarry išlieka neprilygstamas.

Puiki knyga. Rekomenduoju visiems politinių trilerių mėgėjams, sutinkantiems, kad problemų ir dilemų sprendimas - irgi intriguojantis veiksmas.

[Rick Gibson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Pretty ropey stuff for a novelist with a middling to good track record in spy fiction. The anachronisms are forgivable for a novel written in the late seventies but what increasingly breaks this book's back are naive politics, a stultifying lack of pace, hagiographic characterisation and some craw-stickingly ersatz morality.

The book is about the politics of 2 presidential candidates, painted in black and white as saint versus sinner. The saint has switched the lights out in America and stopped people driving to stop the waste of fossil fuels, while the sinner has placed 30 people on a moon of Saturn in under 6 years and started scanning populations, especially black ones, for criminal genetic markers to stop them reproducing. The sinner is backed by a big businessman who tries to engineer a nuclear catastrophe, while the saint is a noble vehicle carrying McCarry's own hopes of a future that never came. Say what you want about the melodrama of American politics but this is naive, unbelievable caricature.

The politics of the main characters betray some unsavoury opinions of the author. He describes federal grants to black leaders as ceding control of major metropolitan areas to blacks, resulting in corruption, crime waves and police forces who will not protect whites. Nasty undertones that echo Lovecraft's dislike of 'others'.

Onto the pace. For a 'spy' novel ostensibly about Paul Christopher, very few thrills happen and the pace is much, much slower than any of his previous books. There is a painfully slow uncovering of the implications of a presidential decision to save Israel and America from a terrorist's nuclear threat and murder an Arab billionaire. But mostly this is a turgid soap opera about the nephews of a character who does not feature at all. You find out what happened 1/3 of the way in. From there on, it's often tedious, with pages and pages of prose describing relationships between lead characters and their ex-wives. It frequently drags and smacks of poor editing.

The author absolutely adores his lead characters, lavishing them with every superlative he can think of. They are American archetypes painted unapologetically as supermen and superwomen. Tall, golden, handsome, invincible intellects; lethal, cunning and ruthless warriors who discard mores to protect the world (well, America); physical and sexual athletes with their lean, tall and flawlessly beautiful women.

The hero even manages to leave 2 young blacks ("wolfish slum boys") who try to mug him with broken limbs, kicked nuts and both vomiting in pain within a single sentence! Funny but bad.

McCarry uses the imperfections of almost every other character to highlight his hero's multifaceted perfection. The base, sweaty, hairy, arrogant, deviant, flustered, broken, mad, murderous and often non-American other characters are typically disgraced and embarrassed by the unerring American leads.

As in every previous novel, it is the British for whom McCarry reserves special disgust. Here's another gay, feckless, weak, traitorous, effete, drunk and ineffective agent to run the British bureau in Washington, sell out for money and get used by the Bad Guys to give the Good Guys a hard time, temporarily before an inevitable ritual humiliation. Again, almost exactly the same as the last novel. Here's the shallow, immoral, condescending, alcoholic and, naturally, aristocratic British wife of a flawed main character who tries, unsuccessfully, to manipulate the wife of one of the Christopher family scions, while adoring her ("god, but these American women are beautiful" or some such breathless tripe).

Possibly the novel's greatest anachronism and failure is how the writer forces us through the moral implications of the decision to assassinate a terrorist. The decision threatens to destroy the good president's reelection campaign and even, melodramatically, aborts a baby. It simply doesn't ring true now or then. Almost every American thriller on paper, television and film from the second world war to this day is laced repeatedly by the homicide of the bad by the good. How much these American authors and directors bother to justify the homicide depends on their patience, which has worn increasingly thin of late, particularly after 9-11. More recently and disturbingly, American fiction of all kinds features gory torture, justified in defence of the American realm.

So when the author, writing in 1979, has the head of the CIA sickened by giving the order to kill a nuclear terrorist, or an American president suffering from rubber stamping an assassination that threatened Israel, you have no more disbelief to suspend. It fails because the moral dilemma is now but was, even at the time of writing, ersatz. There is never any doubt that McCarry will justify it in every conceivable way, political, moral, personal, practical, even religious.

I have read McCarry's thrillers to date because they have given, at times, a fascinating perspective on how America in the sixties and seventies saw the rest of the world - essentially as a broken thing to be fixed by refashioning it as America. These are quintessentially imperial novels written by an ex-CIA agent with some considerable disdain for everyone else, especially the British, apart from some wary respect for the Russians.

You could live with the above - and probably do with many a recent book and film - but where McCarry really went wrong with this book was investing so much time in the family tree of his Kennedy-like clan. As soon as you read that Paul Christopher was a golden child walking and talking by the time he was 1, escaping Nazi Germany but leaving his impossibly beautiful Schindler-like mother in the hands of the Gestapo to become a reluctant war hero worshipped by all who meet him, you know there is no hope of interesting lead characters.

Deeply flawed. I got thoroughly sick of it 2/3rds of the way through. The Miernik Dossier may be his only great book. Downhill from there.

[Al · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is probably best understood when one realizes that it was written in 1979. Clearly, the two presidential candidate characters dominating the story, locked in an election campaign struggle, are surrogates for Carter and Reagan. Despite the obvious flaws of both, and they are presented as over-the-top extremist caricatures, from the beginning McCarry has his thumb on the scales in favor of the Carter stand-in and his obsessive sidekick. Early on in the book, I was impressed by the fact that McCarry was devoting major time to character development, even though the book was billed as an espionage thriller, and prepared to give it a higher rating. Increasingly, though, I was benumbed by the tangle of relationships, shifting motivations, and murky action, and in the end I was irrevocably put off by the contrived ending, with its morally indefensible premise. Too bad, because a lot of good work went into the buildup, and the plot has many echoes in today's difficult world.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

I tend to proclaim myself a staunch proponent of the Death of the Author. Yet I just can't help but resurrect them. I believe Charles McCarry had a defined point of view which allows one to understand his fiction. Thus to me, The Better Angels is a testament of belief, a prophecy understood only in hindsight, and a satire so savage the poets of Ireland would draw back trembling.

To my mind, the nature of spying is deception and manipulation. So is fiction. McCarry was both an expert spy and an accomplished writer of fiction. There is what one sees on the surface of the printed word, the straight-forward telling of a tale. There is also what one draws forth from the tale, the subjective understanding of what is meant, what happened, and what are the true identities of the actors on the stage.

Read it and make sense of it yourself, of course. If I have anything to say for the record, it is that some things can only be seen from oblique angles.

[Jak60 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite this book is categorised as one of the Paul Christopher espionage books, let's clarify that The Better Angels is more a political than an espionage novel (with some intriguing inroads into sci-fi with a slight scent of Orwell's 1984) and it does not feature Paul Christopher. The story, based on the descendants of some of peripheral characters appearing in other McCarry novels, was written in 1978 and takes place in 1988; however, judging the quality of the novel by the number predictions which actually came true - as many reviews do - looks to me a rather futile exercise: Blade Runner was produced in 1982 and featured the world of 2019: we can all appreciate how different that looks from the world we live in, yet the movie - as well as Philip Dick's book - remain an unparalleled cult (let alone the aforementioned 1984 by George Orwell).
So, after this long preamble, let me say that I enjoyed hugely this book; I like the genre and I think this is one of the best. If anything, a lot in this novel - the context, the situations, the tone of voice, some of the key characters - reminded me of Richard North Patterson, of which I am a huge fan; if you liked The Better Angels, you might like the Kerry Kilcannon series (very close to Frosty Lockwood).

[John Welsh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn't quite a standard Charles McGarry novel - the cover says it's part of the Paul Christopher series, but it definitely isn't. What it is is a novel written in the 1970s and set in the 1990s, so it's really a piece of retro Science Fiction. Some things about the 'future' he gets completely wrong, but in some things he's uncannily prescient; a rightwing ex-president whose cultish following refuses to accept the result of the election that ended his presidency is a major factor in the story.
And it's done in an early version of McGarry's glassy-smooth prose, all elliptical conversations between ice-cool patrician white people with exotic family histories and perfect manners. Catnip for McGarry fans, in other words. Be warned, though; at this point in his career he wasn't immune to the curse of the regrettable 70s sex scene.

[Matthew Barmack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ok writing. Somewhat stereotypical characters, e.g., the WASPY CIA agent, the eccentric British agent, the Third World freedom fighter, the DC socialite, the celebrity reporter, etc. But what a vivid yet scarily plausible story. I believe that the book was written in 2010, but the story could come out of today's headlines and includes: an authoritarian right-wing presidential candidate with shades of Elon Musk with his focus on space exploration, hacking of voting machines; Islamic terrorism in the U.S. with the goal of influencing an election; an alliance of convenience between a big oil company, a fundamentalist Islamic leader, and a Palestinian terrorist group involving suitcase nukes; ... One of the few spy books that I have read recently that made me truly anxious. Doesn't help that the author (now deceased) was in the CIA and presumably had some basis for the story.

[Kurishin · Rating 4 out of 5]

The brilliance of this novel is neither the thrilling plot nor the character development but rather McCarry's vision of how the US' two party system could develop in the future.
Written in the wake of Watergate, McCarry seemingly took a Nixon-like figure and projected him to the future. Win-at-all-costs electioneering, to include election rigging; post-election revenge threats/taking; zero sum politicking; a wealthy, populist one-term president whose supporters consider him to be the 'real' president; and terrorism affecting domestic politics and being used as a political weapon. I'm sure I'm forgetting some other of McCarry's perspicacious forecasting. Given where we are in the US, at the moment, it was chilling reading.

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is obviously racist & sexist, some of the plot ludicrous, & some of the predictions of the US War on Terror do not land, but Goodreads reviewers miss how deeply perceptive this 1979 novel is in forecasting the War on Terror, the decline of the US-UK empire, & C21 US presidential election chaos.

As a US spy writer, McCarry equals his English rivals le Carré & Deighton although that comparison reveals & obscures in equal measure.

However, McCarry's true value is not in forecasting or uplifting the ghetto of US spy fiction but in documenting the psychosexual dysfunction of the US liberal-imperial WASP ruling elite. He approaches James & Wharton in that regard.

[Justin Ridgell · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fourth book in the Paul Christopher series. While it doesn't include him, it includes his extended family. This is an exciting political drama/thriller. Featuring an election, secret service, a presidential aide and the fate of the nation on the line. While the characters are interesting, I felt at times too many big leaps were made to tie everything up. While these didn't completely detract from the story, it was a feeling I couldn't shake come the end of the story. Really enjoyed it. Might actually make for a better movie.

[Doug · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a magnificent book. Originally published in 1979 but set in 1996, its backdrop is global terrorism but the presidential election at its core is straight from today's headlines (and candidates). There is much about the gray areas and moral ambiguities of journalists, politicians, spies, and powerful people, and the story of a deeply polarized America could not be more relevant to the here and now. Beautifully written, this isn't just a stunning work of political fiction. It's a stunning work of literature.

[Richard Knott · Rating 2 out of 5]

To be honest I couldn't wait for this book to end and when it did it was with a whimper. For the first 150 pages I was wondering when Paul Christopher was going to turn up ('A Paul Christopher Novel' is on the cover). He never did - and I don't blame him. I enjoyed much of the opening section but increasingly I found the characters wooden and the plot labyrinthine. I liked the novel's sense of place, particularly the locations in the US. But overall I was disappointed.

[Sean Fitzpatrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Angels or devils

Angels have wings to fly above the chicanery of our world but devils know how leap. How can we tell the difference? I suppose we.pick one and cross our fingers. And act surprised when devils be angels. And vice versa. McCarty drops us into such a world 30 years ago and yet it seems to be every bit of today. We are not sure who the better angels are.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

Felt like it went on for ever

I liked McCarrols Paul Christopher book but this was a bore that I struggled to finish. Hardly anything happened and at the end you get the moral - no political party has a monopoly on immorality. In case you were ever wondering about that.

[Erwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! It is eerie how the comments about the two Presidential Characters are more appropriate now than when this story was written.

Rhe recent history of terrorism has only solidified what was in this novel.

[Gerald · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's hard to belive how somebody can jump from wrighting greatly entertainig books to something as boring as this book.
Basically it's a 50 page short story wrapped in 300 pages of .... something

[David Meier · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a Paul Christopher story. Cliche in a certain sense but the story was thought provoking and does stay with you for a while.

[Tom Shearer · Rating 1 out of 5]

not good

This is not a Peter Christopher novel regardless of what Amazon says. It is incoherent drivel that does not match up to the author’s other work

[Jeffrey Ball · Rating 4 out of 5]

Disturbing

Perhaps the most disturbing book I have read in years. Lots of moving parts. Real fear that it may already have happened.

[Thomas W. Forehand · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prescient

Wow if I did not know better, this narrative reminds me a lot of what is going on in our divided country. A great read

[Jack Sussek · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not his best.

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

McCarry must have had a tough time with women. This is the third book in which a woman leaves her husband in about the worst possible way, rubbing his nose in her infidelity before walking out (or, in one case, getting killed before she can walk out).

There are some interesting characters and great scenes, all designed to create difficult choices for the two protagonists.

McCarry spends considerable time describing how he sees people on the left and the right. Remember, he was friends with both Ralph Nader and members of Reagan's innermost circle. McCarry is an oracle in describing today's politics, in describing how the left justifies, cheers, and engages in violence while also telling themselves the right is the party of thugs. He wrote this perfect paragraph:

The mere fact that a man held power did not mean that he deserved to die. Some leaders shone in the imagination. Thirty years or more had not sufficed to heal the wound that John Kennedy's death had inflicted on Patrick and his friends. But any one of them, Patrick especially, would have killed Richard Nixon with his own hands and been proud of the act.

The book accurately predicts the Olivia Nuzzi Affair.

Unfortunately, the book fails for two reasons. First, it is never explained why the largest US energy company would want to light up a war in the Middle East by working with terrorists. Second, the resolution makes everything that came before it unnecessary.

2.5 stars

[Bowdoin]

Reader in group- The book I am currently reading is Charles McCarry's The Better Angels. I say this with no small sense of regret, since I've been reading this book for at least nine months. More accurately, I've been not reading it for at least nine months. It perhaps comes as no surprise that the guilty pleasure of a Government professor is reading spy novels. This novel, however, is just making me feel guilty. I immensely enjoyed McCarry's first two novels, The Miernik Dossier and The Tears of Autumn (spoiler alert: the Vietnamese killed Kennedy!). The novels evoke a certain Cold War tension that post-Cold War spy novels somehow have not been able to sustain. The collapse of the Soviet Union may have been good for Eastern Europe, but it was a catastrophe for spy novels (and, apparently, Vladimir Putin). I am (or at least was) looking forward to reading his latest outing, The Shanghai Factor, which presumably takes place in China, a place near and dear to my heart. Yet I've been stuck on The Better Angels for quite a while. Perhaps part of the problem is that The Better Angels, which was written in 1979, is set in the future year of 2000. I also feel like I'm a victim of bait-and-switch. The book's cover proclaims it to be a Paul Christopher novel, the protagonist of his two previous novels. But I'm halfway through the book and Paul is nowhere to be seen. Maybe it's just because he's a good spy, but I'd like to think a careful reader would have noticed him by now. I would like to blame the slow pace at which I have been reading The Better Angels on my son, Hans, but since he's only four weeks old that hardly seems fair. After all, last week I tore through Gillian Flynn's Gone Girl. But that book was good.