What do you think?
Rate this book
Paul Christopher #1
The Miernik Dossier
“Charles McCarry is the best modern writer on the subject of intrigue,†? wrote P.J. O'Rourke, and Time magazine has declared that “there is no better American spy novelist.†? Related as a collection of dossier notes written by the five characters, The Miernik Dossier reveals a complicated web in which each spins his or her own deception: each is a spider, and each is a spy. The Miernik Dossier is a thoroughgoing masterpiece.
246 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1973
266 people are currently reading
3406 people want to read
About the author
Charles McCarry
30 books317 followersMcCarry 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.
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.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 189 reviews
September 19, 2017
On his experience being a deep-cover agent for the CIA: "It's one of the most boring occupations in the world, punctuated by moments of ecstasy. You sit around for days, sometimes for weeks, waiting for something you think you have made happen, to happen. And sometimes it does, and sometimes it doesn't. Or waiting for an agent to show up. They're famous for not doing that, or showing up in the wrong place or on the wrong day, wrong hour." Charles McCarry
In the 1980s I read just about every espionage book I could get my hands on. I read Deighton, Ludlum, Fleming, Ambler, Forsyth, Greene, and of course the grand master LeCarre. Later I read Alan Furst who at his best reminds me of Graham Greene. Somehow in all this I lost track of Charles McCarry. I knew about him. I had thought many times I should read him, but there was always another book more pressing.
Charles McCarry
I was trading some John Dickson Carr books to The Mysterious Bookshop in New York and was pleasantly surprised when the legendary Otto Penzler called me back to discuss the books. I had a moment of star struck, numb tongued, stupidity until his affability made it impossible for me not to respond to his bantering talk about books. In the course of our discussion about books he brought up Charles McCarry as one of those lost treasures. I had that OH CRAP realization that I had not only forgotten McCarry, but had put him on a back burner for a couple of decades. So thanks to Mr. Penzler I brought McCarry to the front burner and had the pleasure this week of reading his first book THE MIERNIK DOSSIER.
The book is a compilation of interviews, intercepted radio transmitions, diary entries, field reports, surveillance, debriefings, and dispatches from or about a group of friends in Geneva who happen to all be spies of one sort or another. I was worried about the format, but McCarry seamlessly weaves the narrative together, and soon I found myself flipping pages as fast as I could, trying to inhale as quickly as possible all that the dossier has to reveal.
The Miernik Dossier First Edition
Tadeusz Miernik, is a Polish national worried about the expiration of his contract and visa. He is petitioning his circle of friends to help him, through their governments, to find a way for him to stay in Geneva. He is a clumsy, oafish, ugly man difficult to understand, an enigma and a source for endless speculation among his friends as to who exactly he is working for.
Paul Christopher is an American agent in deep cover with a mandate to keep an eye on everyone and everything. People like to talk to him and this becomes more and more an asset as the plot unfolds and he attempts to understand what exactly is going on. McCarry uses him as his main character in many future novels. Paul describes how he sees his job. "There is an artistry to what we are doing: spies are like novelists--except that spies use living people and real places to make their works of art. More and more I want to see what I can do with characters I've been given."
Nigel Collins is a British agent involved with the beautiful Ilona Bentley. He and Tadeusz Miernik butt heads frequently somewhat to do with jealousy over Ilona, but also because they are suspicious of each others true intentions.
Kalesh el Khatar, a Sudanese prince and later in the novel a recruit by various organizations. He is of memorable, dramatic personage. Standing 6'8", black as oil, charming, and sophisticated Kalesh is a confident, aloof personality who tries to stay above all the intrigue, but eventually is forced into the game by necessity. Zophia speaks of his character. "Once in a while I see Kalash, always with a different little female. He wears these girls like scarves--they flutter around his neck till his mood changes, and then he puts on another." Ahh yes he was also a bit of a womanizer.
Ilona Bentley, a Hungarian concentration camp survivor is as alluded to earlier a beautiful, vivacious, young lady intent on seducing all the men in the group. She has suspected Russian ties and her beautiful facade hides many soul torn scars that make it easy to see why she has a "live for the moment" philosophy of life.
Zofia Miernik, supposed sister of Tadeusz. Despite the best efforts of the group, through the archives of their various organizations, no one can confirm for sure that she has any relationship to Tadeusz. Paul Christopher is enlisted by Tadeusz to be smuggled into Czechoslovakia, behind the iron curtain, to bring out Zofia. Tadeusz has fears that his government will put pressure on him to return through their ability to hurt his sister. Zofia is beautiful, in other words does not look anything like her brother, adding to the speculation that she is not really his sister. Paul goes along with the scheme with the hope that he can learn more about Miernik in the process.
Kalesh is asked by his father to drive a Cadillac, a gift from a business associate, to him in Sudan. Kalesh asked Nigel and Paul to go along and soon everyone decides to go on this insane road trip through the desert. Everyone is going for similar reasons, mainly to keep an eye on the others and learn as much as they can about their fellow travelers. The intrigue, the bits and pieces of collected data, the distrust, the uncertain alliances keep everyone guessing and even I, the reader, learn only enough to keep my own brain grasping for answers.
We wouldn't have had a cold war if we'd just heating things up a bit at Yalta.
There was a bit of nostalgia for me reading this book. I couldn't wait for the cold war to end when I was living in the middle of it. Like most other people I knew, I thought the arsenal build up by both the Soviets and the US a tragic waste of resources, but in the course of all this gamesmanship a fascinating genre of literature was born. Spies put there lives on the line, lived each day with bated breath trying to keep their prospective countries safe from a nebulous threat. The format of this book is unusual and yet handled so deftly you will find yourself applauding the sure hand of McCarry to guide you to a tragic and yet satisfying ending.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
In the 1980s I read just about every espionage book I could get my hands on. I read Deighton, Ludlum, Fleming, Ambler, Forsyth, Greene, and of course the grand master LeCarre. Later I read Alan Furst who at his best reminds me of Graham Greene. Somehow in all this I lost track of Charles McCarry. I knew about him. I had thought many times I should read him, but there was always another book more pressing.
Charles McCarry
I was trading some John Dickson Carr books to The Mysterious Bookshop in New York and was pleasantly surprised when the legendary Otto Penzler called me back to discuss the books. I had a moment of star struck, numb tongued, stupidity until his affability made it impossible for me not to respond to his bantering talk about books. In the course of our discussion about books he brought up Charles McCarry as one of those lost treasures. I had that OH CRAP realization that I had not only forgotten McCarry, but had put him on a back burner for a couple of decades. So thanks to Mr. Penzler I brought McCarry to the front burner and had the pleasure this week of reading his first book THE MIERNIK DOSSIER.
The book is a compilation of interviews, intercepted radio transmitions, diary entries, field reports, surveillance, debriefings, and dispatches from or about a group of friends in Geneva who happen to all be spies of one sort or another. I was worried about the format, but McCarry seamlessly weaves the narrative together, and soon I found myself flipping pages as fast as I could, trying to inhale as quickly as possible all that the dossier has to reveal.
The Miernik Dossier First Edition
Tadeusz Miernik, is a Polish national worried about the expiration of his contract and visa. He is petitioning his circle of friends to help him, through their governments, to find a way for him to stay in Geneva. He is a clumsy, oafish, ugly man difficult to understand, an enigma and a source for endless speculation among his friends as to who exactly he is working for.
Paul Christopher is an American agent in deep cover with a mandate to keep an eye on everyone and everything. People like to talk to him and this becomes more and more an asset as the plot unfolds and he attempts to understand what exactly is going on. McCarry uses him as his main character in many future novels. Paul describes how he sees his job. "There is an artistry to what we are doing: spies are like novelists--except that spies use living people and real places to make their works of art. More and more I want to see what I can do with characters I've been given."
Nigel Collins is a British agent involved with the beautiful Ilona Bentley. He and Tadeusz Miernik butt heads frequently somewhat to do with jealousy over Ilona, but also because they are suspicious of each others true intentions.
Kalesh el Khatar, a Sudanese prince and later in the novel a recruit by various organizations. He is of memorable, dramatic personage. Standing 6'8", black as oil, charming, and sophisticated Kalesh is a confident, aloof personality who tries to stay above all the intrigue, but eventually is forced into the game by necessity. Zophia speaks of his character. "Once in a while I see Kalash, always with a different little female. He wears these girls like scarves--they flutter around his neck till his mood changes, and then he puts on another." Ahh yes he was also a bit of a womanizer.
Ilona Bentley, a Hungarian concentration camp survivor is as alluded to earlier a beautiful, vivacious, young lady intent on seducing all the men in the group. She has suspected Russian ties and her beautiful facade hides many soul torn scars that make it easy to see why she has a "live for the moment" philosophy of life.
Zofia Miernik, supposed sister of Tadeusz. Despite the best efforts of the group, through the archives of their various organizations, no one can confirm for sure that she has any relationship to Tadeusz. Paul Christopher is enlisted by Tadeusz to be smuggled into Czechoslovakia, behind the iron curtain, to bring out Zofia. Tadeusz has fears that his government will put pressure on him to return through their ability to hurt his sister. Zofia is beautiful, in other words does not look anything like her brother, adding to the speculation that she is not really his sister. Paul goes along with the scheme with the hope that he can learn more about Miernik in the process.
Kalesh is asked by his father to drive a Cadillac, a gift from a business associate, to him in Sudan. Kalesh asked Nigel and Paul to go along and soon everyone decides to go on this insane road trip through the desert. Everyone is going for similar reasons, mainly to keep an eye on the others and learn as much as they can about their fellow travelers. The intrigue, the bits and pieces of collected data, the distrust, the uncertain alliances keep everyone guessing and even I, the reader, learn only enough to keep my own brain grasping for answers.
We wouldn't have had a cold war if we'd just heating things up a bit at Yalta.
There was a bit of nostalgia for me reading this book. I couldn't wait for the cold war to end when I was living in the middle of it. Like most other people I knew, I thought the arsenal build up by both the Soviets and the US a tragic waste of resources, but in the course of all this gamesmanship a fascinating genre of literature was born. Spies put there lives on the line, lived each day with bated breath trying to keep their prospective countries safe from a nebulous threat. The format of this book is unusual and yet handled so deftly you will find yourself applauding the sure hand of McCarry to guide you to a tragic and yet satisfying ending.
If you wish to see more of my most recent book and movie reviews, visit http://www.jeffreykeeten.com
I also have a Facebook blogger page at:https://www.facebook.com/JeffreyKeeten
August 10, 2019
Here goes a maverick: the possibly dullest spy novel in existence, ever, which paradoxically makes you read it till the very end. And the plot? It goes like a bad joke: a bunch of spies from different countries enter a bar... only in this case they keep doing that all the time, they meet and travel. Mindbogglingly stupid and still compulsively readable.
Q:
“Did you learn nothing at Oxford?” Miernik demanded.
“I learned that it is inconvenient to be without slaves,” said Khatar. (c)
Q:
It was hard to blame the Italian for being suspicious. Zofia, it turns out, is traveling on an Ecuadorian passport. (This document may well be genuine; it shows her true name and actual date and place of birth; no doubt Kirnov has an obliging friend in some Ecuadorian consulate.) Kalash, too, is a rare bird to appear at an Alpine outpost, and both Collins’ passport and mine are filled with suspicious visas and stamps. By any standards, we are a peculiar group. (c)
Q:
There is between us a sort of cousinship; he sees that I am an agent like himself, and he understands. Each of us takes it for granted that the other is under discipline, though nothing has ever been stated in the open about this. There are limits to this kind of a relationship: I cannot cross the boundary to ask him what precisely he was doing in Czechoslovakia. He cannot come over to my side to volunteer any information. (c)
Q:
But we have no grounds for disillusion. His action had the effect of protecting his reputation with his superiors and also obliterated any traces of Christopher’s crossing over the plowed ground along the frontier. On balance we regard the futile search action ordered by the Czech as an intelligent ad hoc operation that protected his interests as well as our own. (c)
Q:
“Did you learn nothing at Oxford?” Miernik demanded.
“I learned that it is inconvenient to be without slaves,” said Khatar. (c)
Q:
It was hard to blame the Italian for being suspicious. Zofia, it turns out, is traveling on an Ecuadorian passport. (This document may well be genuine; it shows her true name and actual date and place of birth; no doubt Kirnov has an obliging friend in some Ecuadorian consulate.) Kalash, too, is a rare bird to appear at an Alpine outpost, and both Collins’ passport and mine are filled with suspicious visas and stamps. By any standards, we are a peculiar group. (c)
Q:
There is between us a sort of cousinship; he sees that I am an agent like himself, and he understands. Each of us takes it for granted that the other is under discipline, though nothing has ever been stated in the open about this. There are limits to this kind of a relationship: I cannot cross the boundary to ask him what precisely he was doing in Czechoslovakia. He cannot come over to my side to volunteer any information. (c)
Q:
But we have no grounds for disillusion. His action had the effect of protecting his reputation with his superiors and also obliterated any traces of Christopher’s crossing over the plowed ground along the frontier. On balance we regard the futile search action ordered by the Czech as an intelligent ad hoc operation that protected his interests as well as our own. (c)
June 2, 2018
This time I was not as dubious. The first time I encountered a novel fashioned solely of various reports from a variety of sources, it was a book called The Anderson Tapes by Lawrence Sanders, and I responded in part: “I have to admit I had my doubts: a novel told entirely through the transcripts of various wiretaps? But I had forgotten that this man was a master of the form.” This is my first exposure to Charles McCarry but apparently he was as equally adept.
The story begins with Tadeusz Miernik and his small group of friends, all associated with the World Research Organization, an agency of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. The year is sometime around 1959 (though the book was written in 1973) and the middle of the cold war era makes the WRO the perfect environment for deep-cover spies. Most of this group are exactly that--and each automatically assume the same of the others. The African, a prince of a Sudanese Muslim sect, is legitimate. As is the Pakistani, who drops out of the story quickly. The American, the Englishman and the Frenchman are all spies, and along with their superiors and allies, it is their reports that make up the “dossier” of the title. The initial question is whether Miernik, apparently in fear of being forced to return home to Russia-occupied Poland, is also an operative.
The cast promptly expands to include relatives, lovers and old family friends, not all of whom are innocent. Simultaneously the story expands to include road trips, defections and a terrorist organization. And we follow along as these various levels of espionage begin to interconnect.
Following isn’t always easy. A Russian enforcer and an ally of Miernik’s have similar names. As do an informant among the terrorist and the Chief Inspector who is hunting them. And the ending doesn’t clear up everything. With the last, though, some of the fault may be mine; I am a slow and not-always-continuous reader. I may have missed something.
I recommend the work anyway. McCarry effortlessly displayed significant depth of character, and did so in spite of the impersonal means of communication inherent in the novel’s concept. In the end--even with some things left unexplained--I enjoyed having traveled with these characters.
The story begins with Tadeusz Miernik and his small group of friends, all associated with the World Research Organization, an agency of the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland. The year is sometime around 1959 (though the book was written in 1973) and the middle of the cold war era makes the WRO the perfect environment for deep-cover spies. Most of this group are exactly that--and each automatically assume the same of the others. The African, a prince of a Sudanese Muslim sect, is legitimate. As is the Pakistani, who drops out of the story quickly. The American, the Englishman and the Frenchman are all spies, and along with their superiors and allies, it is their reports that make up the “dossier” of the title. The initial question is whether Miernik, apparently in fear of being forced to return home to Russia-occupied Poland, is also an operative.
The cast promptly expands to include relatives, lovers and old family friends, not all of whom are innocent. Simultaneously the story expands to include road trips, defections and a terrorist organization. And we follow along as these various levels of espionage begin to interconnect.
Following isn’t always easy. A Russian enforcer and an ally of Miernik’s have similar names. As do an informant among the terrorist and the Chief Inspector who is hunting them. And the ending doesn’t clear up everything. With the last, though, some of the fault may be mine; I am a slow and not-always-continuous reader. I may have missed something.
I recommend the work anyway. McCarry effortlessly displayed significant depth of character, and did so in spite of the impersonal means of communication inherent in the novel’s concept. In the end--even with some things left unexplained--I enjoyed having traveled with these characters.
December 4, 2013
I must confess that after the Berlin Wall came down, I had this feeling that that was it for the Cold War spy novel. So I was truly happy to find this book, which was written in 1971, so I could once again relive the Cold War spy experience.
The Miernik Dossier (the first of the Paul Christopher series), is written in a style that one would find if they could infiltrate the files of an espionage agency and open up an actual dossier. The story is told through reports of various agents, intercepted communications, a diary, letters, etc. It tells the story of a mixed group of intelligence agents who normally met for lunch once a week in Geneva among other interactions, who find themselves brought together on a trip to the Sudan. The point of the trip, for Paul Christopher (an American agent under deep cover at the time), is to determine whether or not one of the group, Tadeusz Miernik, is indeed a spy from behind the Iron Curtain and mixed up with a small band of terrorists in the Sudan called the Anointed Liberation Front (ALF). It all starts when Miernik requests to remain working for the World Research Organization in Geneva, after he is contacted from Poland and called back home. His story is that he will be put into prison if he returns, but others think he is Soviet spy who is possibly going to defect to the West as a cover. The trip to the Sudan, ostensibly to take a Cadillac to the father of one of the group provides the vehicle through which Paul can watch Miernik and make reports on his status.
I won't add any more about the plot line, but McCarry is a talented writer who lets the suspense build page after page, and who allows the reader to make up his or her own mind. The characters are very well drawn, and the whole atmosphere of intrigue, deception and spycraft quickly engaged me so that I did not want to put this book down.
Definitely recommended for those who enjoy Cold War-era spy fiction, and anyone who has maybe read McCarry's later works in the Paul Christopher series and missed this one.
Highly recommended.
The Miernik Dossier (the first of the Paul Christopher series), is written in a style that one would find if they could infiltrate the files of an espionage agency and open up an actual dossier. The story is told through reports of various agents, intercepted communications, a diary, letters, etc. It tells the story of a mixed group of intelligence agents who normally met for lunch once a week in Geneva among other interactions, who find themselves brought together on a trip to the Sudan. The point of the trip, for Paul Christopher (an American agent under deep cover at the time), is to determine whether or not one of the group, Tadeusz Miernik, is indeed a spy from behind the Iron Curtain and mixed up with a small band of terrorists in the Sudan called the Anointed Liberation Front (ALF). It all starts when Miernik requests to remain working for the World Research Organization in Geneva, after he is contacted from Poland and called back home. His story is that he will be put into prison if he returns, but others think he is Soviet spy who is possibly going to defect to the West as a cover. The trip to the Sudan, ostensibly to take a Cadillac to the father of one of the group provides the vehicle through which Paul can watch Miernik and make reports on his status.
I won't add any more about the plot line, but McCarry is a talented writer who lets the suspense build page after page, and who allows the reader to make up his or her own mind. The characters are very well drawn, and the whole atmosphere of intrigue, deception and spycraft quickly engaged me so that I did not want to put this book down.
Definitely recommended for those who enjoy Cold War-era spy fiction, and anyone who has maybe read McCarry's later works in the Paul Christopher series and missed this one.
Highly recommended.
August 15, 2021
This is a pretty remarkable book. The Miernik Dossier indeed takes the form of a case file, told completely through incident reports, CIA cable traffic, police logs, interview/interrogation transcripts, diary excerpts, etc. - an early example of the type of epistolary writing which has become increasingly popular lately, particularly in YA and SF with such books as The Illuminae Files, The Themis Files, The Three and others.
As such, this is one of the more realistic spy books I've read in a long time, which makes it's inconclusive ending even more impactful. Two of the last documents in the book are completely contradictory summaries of all what happened to that point. In particular, main protagonist Paul Christopher makes the following statement, which I fear is far too reflective of how the CIA and similar organizations actually operate:
"I am going to say a very harsh thing that is directed as much (or more) against myself as against all you people who sit inside, making the plans that I carry out. I think we ran Miernik as we did primarily for the fun of it. We have come to look on our work, in the field at least, as sport..."
I say "main protagonist" because while Christopher appears in a number of subsequent books, McCarry in this first story pulls off the difficult task of making many characters equally important and, even when we know (or think we know) which of them are "the bad guys," equally sympathetic.
Nearly every review I've read states in one way or another that "Charles McCarry is the best espionage writer I've never heard of." And I'm guilty as well; I only learned of him when I read his obituary in the Washington Post this past February, and was particularly disappointed to learn that he had lived right here in Northern Virginia - I would most definitely have tracked him down.
I don't know yet if subsequent Christopher books were written in the same style, but I'll definitely be reading more of them, (luckily, as a "local author," our library has almost the entire series).
PERSONAL NOTE: Unusual for spy fiction, the second half of the story takes place mainly in the Sudan, while the first half takes place largely in Geneva but with critical scenes in Vienna and nearby-but-across-the-Iron-Curtain Bratislava as well. (The book takes place in the unspecified late 1950's, so apparently not long after after the Sudan obtained it's independence from the bizarre joint rule of Britain and Egypt.) These unique locales made the book of particular personal interest, as I know both Khartoum and Bratislava from earlier careers - having been lucky enough to spend a week in Khartoum during one of my last trips for the State Department; as well as taking several business trips to Slovakia as a much younger businessman. I have to say, the hilltop Bratislava Castle is about the coldest places I've ever been to - no exaggeration, as it was literally both cold and windy enough to have horizontal icicles "growing" (since they didn't actually hang) off tree branches!
(The horizontal icicles of Bratislava Castle)
As such, this is one of the more realistic spy books I've read in a long time, which makes it's inconclusive ending even more impactful. Two of the last documents in the book are completely contradictory summaries of all what happened to that point. In particular, main protagonist Paul Christopher makes the following statement, which I fear is far too reflective of how the CIA and similar organizations actually operate:
"I am going to say a very harsh thing that is directed as much (or more) against myself as against all you people who sit inside, making the plans that I carry out. I think we ran Miernik as we did primarily for the fun of it. We have come to look on our work, in the field at least, as sport..."
I say "main protagonist" because while Christopher appears in a number of subsequent books, McCarry in this first story pulls off the difficult task of making many characters equally important and, even when we know (or think we know) which of them are "the bad guys," equally sympathetic.
Nearly every review I've read states in one way or another that "Charles McCarry is the best espionage writer I've never heard of." And I'm guilty as well; I only learned of him when I read his obituary in the Washington Post this past February, and was particularly disappointed to learn that he had lived right here in Northern Virginia - I would most definitely have tracked him down.
I don't know yet if subsequent Christopher books were written in the same style, but I'll definitely be reading more of them, (luckily, as a "local author," our library has almost the entire series).
PERSONAL NOTE: Unusual for spy fiction, the second half of the story takes place mainly in the Sudan, while the first half takes place largely in Geneva but with critical scenes in Vienna and nearby-but-across-the-Iron-Curtain Bratislava as well. (The book takes place in the unspecified late 1950's, so apparently not long after after the Sudan obtained it's independence from the bizarre joint rule of Britain and Egypt.) These unique locales made the book of particular personal interest, as I know both Khartoum and Bratislava from earlier careers - having been lucky enough to spend a week in Khartoum during one of my last trips for the State Department; as well as taking several business trips to Slovakia as a much younger businessman. I have to say, the hilltop Bratislava Castle is about the coldest places I've ever been to - no exaggeration, as it was literally both cold and windy enough to have horizontal icicles "growing" (since they didn't actually hang) off tree branches!
(The horizontal icicles of Bratislava Castle)
April 24, 2016
I originally learned about this author from a list Anthony Bourdain published of novels written by real spies. More recently another Goodreads friends was reading later novels in the Paul Christopher set, so I decided to go back to the beginning.
I'm very glad I did. This was a pleasure to read, both in the subject matter and in the style - the entire novel is basically a dossier from 1959 on Tadeusz Miernik, a Polish man who some people believe to be working for the Russians. Or he might just be a man who is in danger or prison in his home country just because he has spent time with Westerners in Geneva. The novel is told is transcripts, journal entries, case files, telegrams, interviews and letters. The novel was written in 1973 but contains an organization forming in Khartoum that will feel much less cold war and much more present day to a reader in 2016. I will definitely look for more novels by this author.
I'm very glad I did. This was a pleasure to read, both in the subject matter and in the style - the entire novel is basically a dossier from 1959 on Tadeusz Miernik, a Polish man who some people believe to be working for the Russians. Or he might just be a man who is in danger or prison in his home country just because he has spent time with Westerners in Geneva. The novel is told is transcripts, journal entries, case files, telegrams, interviews and letters. The novel was written in 1973 but contains an organization forming in Khartoum that will feel much less cold war and much more present day to a reader in 2016. I will definitely look for more novels by this author.
March 10, 2016
"The Miernik Dossier" introduces the reader to the CIA agent, sometime poet, and polyglot Paul Christopher and the world during the middle years of the Cold War. The novel begins in Geneva, Switzerland in the late spring, where a Polish civil servant (Tadeusz Miernik) employed on contract with the World Research Organization (WRO) faces having to return to Poland pending the imminent expiration of said contract. Miernik sought, in vain, an extension to his contract. He is fearful of being arrested and imprisoned for espionage should he go back to Poland. But it is apparent that little or nothing can be done to prevent him from having to return to his homeland. Indeed, it was at the urging of the Polish Ambassador that Miernik's contract was allowed to expire without being renewed by WRO.
In appearance, Miernik is a bearish-looking, unprepossessing, big-boned misanthrope. He has had a rather hard life, having lost while a teenager both parents during the German occupation of Poland in the Second World War. The only family he has left is his younger sister Zofia (over whom he has been highly protective), a student at the University of Warsaw. Miernik's friends make for an interesting bunch. Besides Paul Christopher (for whom he has a very high regard), there is Niles Collins (a Brit who is a high-ranking middle-level official at the WRO); Khan (a colleague of Miernik's at the WRO from Pakistan who hardly figures at all in the novel); Kalash el Khatar, a 6'8" tall, dark-skinned, suave and urbane prince whose family commands considerable power, wealth, and influence in Sudan; and Ilona Bentley, an alluring, sexually adventurous, and resourceful woman of British & Hungarian parentage, who was German born and had survived the horrors of Bergen Belsen concentration camp as a child before managing to move on to Switzerland after a short sojourn in Britain with relatives. Aside from Prince Kalash and Khan, there is much more to these aforesaid characters that is subtly revealed by the author as the novel progresses.
In the meantime, Prince Khatar extends an invitation to Paul, Miernik, and Collins to accompany him on a trip to his home in Sudan. Collins had already informed Khatar of Miernik's situation at WRO and the imminent expiration of his passport. Khatar responds by telling him that he can help resolve matters for Miernik by contacting the Sudanese ambassador and issuing Miernik with a Sudanese passport, which would be valid upon entering the country. "Khatar wishes to take Miernik along because... it appears [he] has a scholarly interest in Sudanese history and culture. " Of Miernik, Khatar confides to Collins that "[h]e distracts me with his questions about the look of the country, and what he calls social dynamics," ..."I hope to shut him up by letting him see it all with his own eyes."
Prince Kalash acquires a large Cadillac (specially modified to suit his purposes) with which all of them will travel across Europe to Egypt, from where they will drive across the vast desert to Kalash's father's palatial residence in the Sudan. Furthermore, with Collins' help, Kalash is able to purchase Sten submachine guns, a few pistols, and an ample store of ammo for protection against attacks from marauding bandits once they cross the Sudanese frontier. Paul informs his superiors of the planned trip, which meets with their approval, for within Sudan, there is an incipient terrorist group under Soviet patronage (the Anointed Liberation Front or ALF) threatening to upset the peace and social order in the country. The CIA enjoys the support of the Amir (Prince Kalash's father) and helps to prop up with dollars and advisors the internal security service and police. With Paul as one of its best field agents, the CIA is determined to thwart the Russians' efforts to acquire a power base in Khartoum with which to challenge its established sphere of influence.
Towards mid-June, they set off for Sudan, driving from Switzerland into Austria, and after a short detour across the Iron Curtain (Paul does this as a favor to Miernik for a special mission), they arrive in Naples, where they are met by Ilona Bentley (SURPRISE!), and after a two-day delay, they have the Cadillac placed on the ship that carries them to Cairo. Ilona had been a lover to both Collins and Miernik in Geneva, which heightens a growing antagonism between the two men by virtue of her unexpected inclusion on their holiday.
The descriptions of the Sudanese landscape and the experiences of the main characters there make for very compelling and suspenseful reading in the finest tradition of espionage novels. Nothing is as it seems. "THE MIERNIK DOSSIER" has more twists and turns than the roller coaster at Coney Island. Any reader looking for adventure and excitement won't go wrong here.
In appearance, Miernik is a bearish-looking, unprepossessing, big-boned misanthrope. He has had a rather hard life, having lost while a teenager both parents during the German occupation of Poland in the Second World War. The only family he has left is his younger sister Zofia (over whom he has been highly protective), a student at the University of Warsaw. Miernik's friends make for an interesting bunch. Besides Paul Christopher (for whom he has a very high regard), there is Niles Collins (a Brit who is a high-ranking middle-level official at the WRO); Khan (a colleague of Miernik's at the WRO from Pakistan who hardly figures at all in the novel); Kalash el Khatar, a 6'8" tall, dark-skinned, suave and urbane prince whose family commands considerable power, wealth, and influence in Sudan; and Ilona Bentley, an alluring, sexually adventurous, and resourceful woman of British & Hungarian parentage, who was German born and had survived the horrors of Bergen Belsen concentration camp as a child before managing to move on to Switzerland after a short sojourn in Britain with relatives. Aside from Prince Kalash and Khan, there is much more to these aforesaid characters that is subtly revealed by the author as the novel progresses.
In the meantime, Prince Khatar extends an invitation to Paul, Miernik, and Collins to accompany him on a trip to his home in Sudan. Collins had already informed Khatar of Miernik's situation at WRO and the imminent expiration of his passport. Khatar responds by telling him that he can help resolve matters for Miernik by contacting the Sudanese ambassador and issuing Miernik with a Sudanese passport, which would be valid upon entering the country. "Khatar wishes to take Miernik along because... it appears [he] has a scholarly interest in Sudanese history and culture. " Of Miernik, Khatar confides to Collins that "[h]e distracts me with his questions about the look of the country, and what he calls social dynamics," ..."I hope to shut him up by letting him see it all with his own eyes."
Prince Kalash acquires a large Cadillac (specially modified to suit his purposes) with which all of them will travel across Europe to Egypt, from where they will drive across the vast desert to Kalash's father's palatial residence in the Sudan. Furthermore, with Collins' help, Kalash is able to purchase Sten submachine guns, a few pistols, and an ample store of ammo for protection against attacks from marauding bandits once they cross the Sudanese frontier. Paul informs his superiors of the planned trip, which meets with their approval, for within Sudan, there is an incipient terrorist group under Soviet patronage (the Anointed Liberation Front or ALF) threatening to upset the peace and social order in the country. The CIA enjoys the support of the Amir (Prince Kalash's father) and helps to prop up with dollars and advisors the internal security service and police. With Paul as one of its best field agents, the CIA is determined to thwart the Russians' efforts to acquire a power base in Khartoum with which to challenge its established sphere of influence.
Towards mid-June, they set off for Sudan, driving from Switzerland into Austria, and after a short detour across the Iron Curtain (Paul does this as a favor to Miernik for a special mission), they arrive in Naples, where they are met by Ilona Bentley (SURPRISE!), and after a two-day delay, they have the Cadillac placed on the ship that carries them to Cairo. Ilona had been a lover to both Collins and Miernik in Geneva, which heightens a growing antagonism between the two men by virtue of her unexpected inclusion on their holiday.
The descriptions of the Sudanese landscape and the experiences of the main characters there make for very compelling and suspenseful reading in the finest tradition of espionage novels. Nothing is as it seems. "THE MIERNIK DOSSIER" has more twists and turns than the roller coaster at Coney Island. Any reader looking for adventure and excitement won't go wrong here.
June 28, 2019
One of my duties as a wife is to find books for my husband to read. He enjoys this service! When I came across Charles McCarry, I thought we both might like him but The Miernik Dossier, his first book, got some worrisome reviews while his second, The Tears of Autumn, got raves. So I got the second one and we both found it excellent. Husband requested The Miernik Dossier, no matter what, and we liked it just fine.
Paul Christopher is the series' character. The Miernik Dossier is a spy road trip novel told via reports from different agents all working undercover at the World Research Organization in Geneva, a specialized agency of the UN. The time is 1959. The villain of the times of course is communist Russia.
The negative comments I had seen about this book center around the format and I get it. Reading reports, internal memos, transcriptions of recorded conversations, was at first off-putting. Also each agent was referred to sometimes by last name, sometimes by first. I felt confused.
Reading on despite all I became hooked on the story, figured out the whats and the whys and was thoroughly entertained. I finished the book impressed by an intricacy which kept me guessing, worried and on the edge of my metaphorical seat.
Crossing the African desert in a Cadillac with Paul Christopher, the American operative, a British agent plus his wild girlfriend, a Muslim prince and a Polish scientist suspected of leading a Russian terrorist plot, was the most mysterious yet fun road trip I never actually took.
Paul Christopher is the series' character. The Miernik Dossier is a spy road trip novel told via reports from different agents all working undercover at the World Research Organization in Geneva, a specialized agency of the UN. The time is 1959. The villain of the times of course is communist Russia.
The negative comments I had seen about this book center around the format and I get it. Reading reports, internal memos, transcriptions of recorded conversations, was at first off-putting. Also each agent was referred to sometimes by last name, sometimes by first. I felt confused.
Reading on despite all I became hooked on the story, figured out the whats and the whys and was thoroughly entertained. I finished the book impressed by an intricacy which kept me guessing, worried and on the edge of my metaphorical seat.
Crossing the African desert in a Cadillac with Paul Christopher, the American operative, a British agent plus his wild girlfriend, a Muslim prince and a Polish scientist suspected of leading a Russian terrorist plot, was the most mysterious yet fun road trip I never actually took.
April 29, 2015
Espionage is never clear cut - all the best spy thrillers make that point, some labour it. Alan Furst has a habit of creating romance out of the dilemma; John Le Carre finds victims in it.
In the Miernik Dossier, Charles McCarry carries the idea beyond the end of the book. Not only does he leave the central question unresolved (was Miernik a spy or not?), he actually goes further: the reader is left wondering if the question mark that hangs over him or her at the end of the book is actually reflective of his or her own inability to decide on the truth. In other words, McCarry's brilliant conceit is to make the reader complicit in the dilemma of espionage.
The complicity is created on the very first page - in a directly addressed "Introductory Note" the reader is told that "The attached dossier is submitted to the Committee in response to the request by its Chairman for 'a complete picture of a typical operation'". As the story unravels the events are explained through personal reports from the field, intercepted communications, wiretapped conversations, and even subsequently recovered diaries. The effect is one of eavesdropping on an operation, of seeing the real guts, the true inner workings of a genuine intelligence operation. The reader is the Chair of that committee - the man (or woman) who has to piece together the evidence, make judgements, form an opinion about who is right and who is wrong. It is devastatingly successful as a fictional technique.
The story centres around two people - Paul Christopher, a US deep-cover intelligence agent (and the hero of a series of Charles McCarry books), and Tadeusz Miernik, a Polish researcher who approached the Americans for refuge throwing up multiple questions about his identity as a spy, a double agent or otherwise. It is the resolution of the question of Miernik's true identity that drives the book; but the colour is provided by a series of larger than life characters who take part, with Miernik and Christopher, in a bizarre journey in a Cadillac into the heart of the Sudanese conflict in the late 1950s: Kalash, the Sudanese prince with an instinctive sense of entitlement and a sexual appetite to match; Ilona Bentley, the survivor of Belsen whose beauty floors nearly every male character in the book; Zofia Miernik, the sister of Tadeusz who is extracted from Czechoslovakia during an impromptu cross-border raid; Nigel Collins, the MI6 operative, out of his depth in a world of double and triple identities.
It is the characterisation of Miernik - and the clever introduction of Christopher as an appealing spy-character - that make the book so thrilling. Neither emerges from the book as a hero; but both are shown to have heroic tendencies. The denouement leaves the reader wondering… and waiting for the next book in the series.
First published in 1973, this is a book that deals with universal and unchanging themes - and has this stood the test of time admirably. Highly recommended.
In the Miernik Dossier, Charles McCarry carries the idea beyond the end of the book. Not only does he leave the central question unresolved (was Miernik a spy or not?), he actually goes further: the reader is left wondering if the question mark that hangs over him or her at the end of the book is actually reflective of his or her own inability to decide on the truth. In other words, McCarry's brilliant conceit is to make the reader complicit in the dilemma of espionage.
The complicity is created on the very first page - in a directly addressed "Introductory Note" the reader is told that "The attached dossier is submitted to the Committee in response to the request by its Chairman for 'a complete picture of a typical operation'". As the story unravels the events are explained through personal reports from the field, intercepted communications, wiretapped conversations, and even subsequently recovered diaries. The effect is one of eavesdropping on an operation, of seeing the real guts, the true inner workings of a genuine intelligence operation. The reader is the Chair of that committee - the man (or woman) who has to piece together the evidence, make judgements, form an opinion about who is right and who is wrong. It is devastatingly successful as a fictional technique.
The story centres around two people - Paul Christopher, a US deep-cover intelligence agent (and the hero of a series of Charles McCarry books), and Tadeusz Miernik, a Polish researcher who approached the Americans for refuge throwing up multiple questions about his identity as a spy, a double agent or otherwise. It is the resolution of the question of Miernik's true identity that drives the book; but the colour is provided by a series of larger than life characters who take part, with Miernik and Christopher, in a bizarre journey in a Cadillac into the heart of the Sudanese conflict in the late 1950s: Kalash, the Sudanese prince with an instinctive sense of entitlement and a sexual appetite to match; Ilona Bentley, the survivor of Belsen whose beauty floors nearly every male character in the book; Zofia Miernik, the sister of Tadeusz who is extracted from Czechoslovakia during an impromptu cross-border raid; Nigel Collins, the MI6 operative, out of his depth in a world of double and triple identities.
It is the characterisation of Miernik - and the clever introduction of Christopher as an appealing spy-character - that make the book so thrilling. Neither emerges from the book as a hero; but both are shown to have heroic tendencies. The denouement leaves the reader wondering… and waiting for the next book in the series.
First published in 1973, this is a book that deals with universal and unchanging themes - and has this stood the test of time admirably. Highly recommended.
August 12, 2020
These are very entertaining, fantastical, spy novels that have an air of plausibility about them. Paul Christopher is silent and withdrawn, very capable and adept as a spy, but in a grounded cerebral way. Psychologically manipulating the functionaries of adversarial governments and slowly eliciting information from them, as opposed to James Bond blowing stuff up or having a gun fight whilst skiing.
This is the first in a solid series and I would recommend it to lovers of spy novels and broody, cerebral, emotionally withdrawn men.
This is the first in a solid series and I would recommend it to lovers of spy novels and broody, cerebral, emotionally withdrawn men.
September 11, 2022
Old school corker of a spy novel. Written in the same style as Dossier 51, oddly published in the same year 1973, as a series of reports from various agents.
A hapless Pole stumbles into a multinational plot. In parts it’s very funny with a side dash of thrills and pathos.
A hapless Pole stumbles into a multinational plot. In parts it’s very funny with a side dash of thrills and pathos.
December 16, 2016
Never heard of McCarry before reading recent NYTBR interview with mystery maven-guru Otto Penzler, who declared McCarry his favorite espionage novelist, living or dead. I was skeptical, but upon further review not only understand his ranking but come close to endorsing it. I grabbed this one off library shelf with just a quick read of plot blurb, and it wasn't until I got home that i discovered the book is structured literally like a dossier. I groaned. I usually prefer a central point of view in mysteries, and suspected this was just a gimmick. Not at all. It did take me a while to catch the rhythm of jumping abruptly from one source to another, but once I did, I found it quite ingenious. It requires you to interpret and construct the "evidence" in a way that usual mystery doesn't. When sources started to contradict or corroborate, sometimes both, each other, it deepened the suspense in really exciting ways. Ambiguity, complexity, competing contexts, organizational bias all reign. And in the end, I'm still not sure exactly who or what Miernik is. What raises this genre story to another level is the critique of spying itself argued by one of the sources, Paul Christopher:
"It is the nature of our work that we never know how matters are going to turn out. We begin and end in the dark. There is an overlay of efficiency in everything we do. I'm convinced that there is no more intelligent or unemotional group of men on earth than ourselves. That, if I may say so, is our principal weakness. Because our people are so bright, because our resources are so huge, we consistently tinker with reality."
Calls to mind Karl Rove's comment leading up to the Iraq War, "Because we are an empire, we create our own reality." As the French say, 'la plus ca change ... " Hubris is never satiated; it just grows fatter. Or as Tacitus says, “They create desolation and call it peace.”
I look forward to reading more of McCarry's novels.
"It is the nature of our work that we never know how matters are going to turn out. We begin and end in the dark. There is an overlay of efficiency in everything we do. I'm convinced that there is no more intelligent or unemotional group of men on earth than ourselves. That, if I may say so, is our principal weakness. Because our people are so bright, because our resources are so huge, we consistently tinker with reality."
Calls to mind Karl Rove's comment leading up to the Iraq War, "Because we are an empire, we create our own reality." As the French say, 'la plus ca change ... " Hubris is never satiated; it just grows fatter. Or as Tacitus says, “They create desolation and call it peace.”
I look forward to reading more of McCarry's novels.
March 4, 2017
A beautiful piece of spy fiction, presented not in a regular narrative format, but as a collection of radio intercepts, diary entries, agent reports, cables to and from spies and their case officers, and so on.
The plot revolves around a group of individuals and friends, all of whom but one live in Geneva in 1959, at the height of The Cold War. At the center of the tale is Tadeusz Miernik, a Polish national working for the World Research Organization, a UN agency. Miernik is about to lose his job and be called back to Poland where he claims he fears he will be imprisoned by the secret police. Miernik comes across as a tormented, bumbling, clumsy fool; an unattractive man filled with fear and desire he cannot quench.
The other characters include Paul Christopher, also employed at the WRO and an American agent; Nigel Collins, also at WRO and a British agent; Kalash el Khatar, a Sudanese prince who is 6'8'' tall and a rake; and Ilona Bentley, a beautiful and highly-sexualized British-Hungarian who is in a semi-open relationship with Collins, and who is also an agent, but I won't say for whom.
Still in Poland is Zofia, a woman who Miernik claims is his sister and whom he is desperate to get out of Eastern Europe. He asks Christopher to help him accomplish that.
And in the background is a Soviet plot to arm a revolutionary Islamic group in Sudan with the intent to topple the current government and throw Sudan into the Soviet camp.
The basic question the reader has to answer is whether Miernik is a Polish agent, who, in order to somehow advance the Soviet operation in Sudan, is trying to elicit the sympathy and help of Christopher and the others, or is who he says he is, a simply man fearful for his life.
Charles McCary does a great job in breathing life into each of these characters and muddying the waters further with each page. You are always unsure of what you read, of what is truly going on. The writing itself is crisp and concise, and the unusual format makes for a very quick reading.
Still, I've read such great things about this novel that I was expecting a bit more. Nevertheless, I enjoyed The Miernik Dossier and will read the following entry in the Paul Christopher series.
The plot revolves around a group of individuals and friends, all of whom but one live in Geneva in 1959, at the height of The Cold War. At the center of the tale is Tadeusz Miernik, a Polish national working for the World Research Organization, a UN agency. Miernik is about to lose his job and be called back to Poland where he claims he fears he will be imprisoned by the secret police. Miernik comes across as a tormented, bumbling, clumsy fool; an unattractive man filled with fear and desire he cannot quench.
The other characters include Paul Christopher, also employed at the WRO and an American agent; Nigel Collins, also at WRO and a British agent; Kalash el Khatar, a Sudanese prince who is 6'8'' tall and a rake; and Ilona Bentley, a beautiful and highly-sexualized British-Hungarian who is in a semi-open relationship with Collins, and who is also an agent, but I won't say for whom.
Still in Poland is Zofia, a woman who Miernik claims is his sister and whom he is desperate to get out of Eastern Europe. He asks Christopher to help him accomplish that.
And in the background is a Soviet plot to arm a revolutionary Islamic group in Sudan with the intent to topple the current government and throw Sudan into the Soviet camp.
The basic question the reader has to answer is whether Miernik is a Polish agent, who, in order to somehow advance the Soviet operation in Sudan, is trying to elicit the sympathy and help of Christopher and the others, or is who he says he is, a simply man fearful for his life.
Charles McCary does a great job in breathing life into each of these characters and muddying the waters further with each page. You are always unsure of what you read, of what is truly going on. The writing itself is crisp and concise, and the unusual format makes for a very quick reading.
Still, I've read such great things about this novel that I was expecting a bit more. Nevertheless, I enjoyed The Miernik Dossier and will read the following entry in the Paul Christopher series.
May 18, 2010
Charles McCarry manages a steep feat in this novel -- he matches the sophistication of Graham Greene's espionage 'entertainments' with the literary integrity of a Paul Bowles-esque Northern African expedition. For real! If I were to ask for a spy book to be written for me, it might end up a lot like the Miernik Dossier -- Cold War suspicion, late-night border crossings, fancy European cocktail parties, double agents, religious & sexual tension, standard tradecraft and introspective anti-heros who die anyway. All this, AND a road trip from Italy to Sudan in a white Cadillac with secret compartments, the trip replete with Soviet-equipped bandits and ending at an Amir's palace with tiled courtyards and armed turrets, all beneath that solid white sand Sheltering Sky.
Interestingly, the last book I read, which was by my very favorite author (Le Carre's 'Taylor of Panama') dealt far less gracefully with the issue that so often haunts the genre -- that is, the absolute futility of spying, the complete randomness of winning and losing, and the impossibility of closure or finality when the game is international and endless. The Miernik Dossier does both a careful and a playful job of teasing out this existential crisis that hounds the best agents in every country's Special Branch.
Interestingly, the last book I read, which was by my very favorite author (Le Carre's 'Taylor of Panama') dealt far less gracefully with the issue that so often haunts the genre -- that is, the absolute futility of spying, the complete randomness of winning and losing, and the impossibility of closure or finality when the game is international and endless. The Miernik Dossier does both a careful and a playful job of teasing out this existential crisis that hounds the best agents in every country's Special Branch.
March 10, 2017
THE MIERNIK DOSSIER is wonderful recreational reading. It is the first of McCarry's Paul Christopher novels and it is engrossing. There is no narrative. The novel is presented as a dossier; that is, a collection of documents in a file representing the fruits of a failed operation conducted by our CIA in Europe and North Africa in the late 1950s. The documents include reports submitted by American and British operatives, excerpts from the journal of a suspected Polish spy, the debriefing of various participants, intercepted transmissions among Soviet intelligence personnel and etc.
I will not spoil the story, which is all the more credible because the conclusion is ambiguous. It is a measure of McCarry's skill that he manages ambiguity while at the same time neatly tying up the loose ends.
Before now, the only Paul Christopher novel that I have read is McCarry's THE LAST SUPPER, which impressed me. Now, I look forward to working my way through all of the Paul Christopher books.
As I have written in other reviews, the espionage genre is a favorite of mine for light reading. With few exceptions (John le Carre and Graham Greene come to mind), I don't regard espionage writing as very meaningful. But McCarry has moments where his writing approaches great literature. I plan to enjoy the project of reading the rest of his stuff.
I will not spoil the story, which is all the more credible because the conclusion is ambiguous. It is a measure of McCarry's skill that he manages ambiguity while at the same time neatly tying up the loose ends.
Before now, the only Paul Christopher novel that I have read is McCarry's THE LAST SUPPER, which impressed me. Now, I look forward to working my way through all of the Paul Christopher books.
As I have written in other reviews, the espionage genre is a favorite of mine for light reading. With few exceptions (John le Carre and Graham Greene come to mind), I don't regard espionage writing as very meaningful. But McCarry has moments where his writing approaches great literature. I plan to enjoy the project of reading the rest of his stuff.
June 20, 2014
I had never heard of this book--which it turns out is the first of ten with a recurrent character. It is quite good and really unusual in form, I think. (I don't believe the others in the series follow the form, but I could be wrong about that.) It is, as the title suggests, a dossier--a collection of materials that support a narrative about a man named Miernik. The materials are things like transcripts of wiretaps, reports filed by a variety of agents, notes from debriefings and such like. Only one set of materials--the reports of the recurrent character--resemble a conventional narrative. All the other materials are more like snippets.
The result is really intriguing. Most of the materials are pretty cold and unemotional, but they resulting story isn't. You have a sense of the compilers groping to understand the bigger picture and you see the pieces just as they do. It's also a bit unusual as the core is a road-trip (with five people, some of whom we know to be spies) from Switzerland to the Sudan in a Cadillac.
I look forward to reading the next!
The result is really intriguing. Most of the materials are pretty cold and unemotional, but they resulting story isn't. You have a sense of the compilers groping to understand the bigger picture and you see the pieces just as they do. It's also a bit unusual as the core is a road-trip (with five people, some of whom we know to be spies) from Switzerland to the Sudan in a Cadillac.
I look forward to reading the next!
October 29, 2011
A very good espionage novel written in the early 1970's. The story is told through various agent reports, transcripts, journal entries, etc. and when I saw the structure of the book I was a bit hesitant but the plot unfolded smoothly and each character was fully realized.
December 8, 2025
Continuing with my survey of spy/espionage authors, I decided to check out Charles McCarry, an American writer whose novels came out in the 70s and who I saw referred to in at least one article as “the American LeCarre.”
The Miernick Dossier is his first, and it’s a pretty cool work, though it’s definitely not for everyone. The book takes the form of a dossier of documents pertaining to the case of a Polish civil servant who may or may not be a Soviet agent, and the attempt by an American agent, among others, to discover the truth. So instead of straight prose, the book is comprised of transcripts of interviews, debriefs from case officers, intercepted radio transmisssions, diary entries, and more to provide a kind of prism-like approach to the narrative. Despite the unusual format, the story manages to proceed linearly, and is quite suspenseful if you let yourself get into it. It takes a bit of work, and I got lost at least a couple times, but I almost consider that par for the course when you’re dealing with a story full of double ( possibly triple) agents all trying to outwit one another.
For a format that seems dry on the surface, McCarry manages to sneak in some beautiful prose in places, and also develops the cast of characters really well. It gives the book some surprisingly emotional depth….which I guess is how he earned the comparison to LeCarre. He really should be more well known. Definitely going to read more by him.
The Miernick Dossier is his first, and it’s a pretty cool work, though it’s definitely not for everyone. The book takes the form of a dossier of documents pertaining to the case of a Polish civil servant who may or may not be a Soviet agent, and the attempt by an American agent, among others, to discover the truth. So instead of straight prose, the book is comprised of transcripts of interviews, debriefs from case officers, intercepted radio transmisssions, diary entries, and more to provide a kind of prism-like approach to the narrative. Despite the unusual format, the story manages to proceed linearly, and is quite suspenseful if you let yourself get into it. It takes a bit of work, and I got lost at least a couple times, but I almost consider that par for the course when you’re dealing with a story full of double ( possibly triple) agents all trying to outwit one another.
For a format that seems dry on the surface, McCarry manages to sneak in some beautiful prose in places, and also develops the cast of characters really well. It gives the book some surprisingly emotional depth….which I guess is how he earned the comparison to LeCarre. He really should be more well known. Definitely going to read more by him.
June 18, 2021
3.5 stars
An interesting approach to the espionage novel. The book is structured as a carefully curated selection of entries from a case file. On the one hand this approach does lend an air of authenticity to the proceedings. On the other hand, there are many parts that read like a rather dry official government report. The story is an interesting one set in the late 1950s at the height of the Cold War. However, this reader would have liked more background on the main character here, the U.S. operative Paul Christopher. I enjoyed it enough to want to read some more of the books in this series which I understand take a more traditional approach to their narratives. Cheers!
An interesting approach to the espionage novel. The book is structured as a carefully curated selection of entries from a case file. On the one hand this approach does lend an air of authenticity to the proceedings. On the other hand, there are many parts that read like a rather dry official government report. The story is an interesting one set in the late 1950s at the height of the Cold War. However, this reader would have liked more background on the main character here, the U.S. operative Paul Christopher. I enjoyed it enough to want to read some more of the books in this series which I understand take a more traditional approach to their narratives. Cheers!
July 22, 2014
1959. An intercepted message indicates the Soviets may be sending an agent into Sudan to assist some anti-government rebels. Further investigation points to one man, and the Americans have a plan to turn this to their advantage.
I don't have much experience with epistolary novels, but my limited exposure makes me feel they're problematic, chiefly because I don't believe people write with that much detail in their regular correspondence. There's too much of the novelist in the documents and not enough of the average person writing with a clear purpose. That sentiment certainly holds true for this novel. But, there's another problem.
Part of the reason this novel is written as a series of documents, letters, diary entries, messages, reports, etc. is to show how easy it is for intelligence agencies to distance themselves from the human subject of the investigation. By distancing themselves like this, the decision makers are treating the subject as something less valuable than a human life. And therein lies the other problem with this novel: we just can't make a connection with any of the characters. They're merely the subjects of reports. Very sterile. Congratulations to the author for accomplishing his purpose, but in so doing also making a lackluster novel because of our detachment from the characters.
There are some interesting moments regarding tradecraft, some humor, and a tiny bit of information about Sudan and the desert, but not enough to compensate for the poor characters and writing style. Perhaps the other books in the series are better. Maybe it's possible to skip this one and just read them instead.
I don't have much experience with epistolary novels, but my limited exposure makes me feel they're problematic, chiefly because I don't believe people write with that much detail in their regular correspondence. There's too much of the novelist in the documents and not enough of the average person writing with a clear purpose. That sentiment certainly holds true for this novel. But, there's another problem.
Part of the reason this novel is written as a series of documents, letters, diary entries, messages, reports, etc. is to show how easy it is for intelligence agencies to distance themselves from the human subject of the investigation. By distancing themselves like this, the decision makers are treating the subject as something less valuable than a human life. And therein lies the other problem with this novel: we just can't make a connection with any of the characters. They're merely the subjects of reports. Very sterile. Congratulations to the author for accomplishing his purpose, but in so doing also making a lackluster novel because of our detachment from the characters.
There are some interesting moments regarding tradecraft, some humor, and a tiny bit of information about Sudan and the desert, but not enough to compensate for the poor characters and writing style. Perhaps the other books in the series are better. Maybe it's possible to skip this one and just read them instead.
January 21, 2017
I expected more. This reads like a mystery: the characters are simple and the story is over-plotted. It would be a fine book to read on an airplane. It is a compelling page-turner.
The author was ambitious in terms of viewpoint: the book is a a dossier of written reports where each character in the book takes turns recounting their view of events. It feels a little bit like reality TV where the characters justify themselves by directly speaking to the camera. But the conceit is unbelievable in that nobody would use that much poetry and description in an official report. Since it is unbelievable why bother with it. Why not just have an omniscient narrator?
If you like espionage novels, Alan Furst is much better, though he only does WW2.
The author was ambitious in terms of viewpoint: the book is a a dossier of written reports where each character in the book takes turns recounting their view of events. It feels a little bit like reality TV where the characters justify themselves by directly speaking to the camera. But the conceit is unbelievable in that nobody would use that much poetry and description in an official report. Since it is unbelievable why bother with it. Why not just have an omniscient narrator?
If you like espionage novels, Alan Furst is much better, though he only does WW2.
May 7, 2016
An epistolary spy novel told in dispatches and field reports from 1972 right at the heart of the Cold War. This was sophisticated and witty and charming and sexy. I forget that the Cold War was often fought by people who had experienced real war. In this crazy narrative American spies work alongside African princes and concentration camp survivors in a plot concerning Russian sponsorship of a Communist uprising in the Sudan. It never felt like it should work as a novel but it came together more satisfyingly than thought it might.
December 26, 2012
The Charles McCarry books are the Hidden Jewels of Espionage Fiction. The long story arc which runs through the series is violent and melancholy and the shorter arcs are beautiful.
Just bloody READ THEM, ok?
Just bloody READ THEM, ok?
May 30, 2017
Makes le Carre seem like a writer for a "True Romance" magazine.
June 10, 2017
Not for me. Very dated. Trying to be too clever but not succeeding. Silly really.
June 1, 2018
Everyone is suspicious of Mernik, but why? Why are all these people really spying on him? This book is a jumble of people spying and suspicion that's unfounded and rather dull.
January 4, 2024
Exciting thriller with unusual format. We try and trace whether Pole, Tadeusz Miernik, is genuinely seeking to defect (it’s 1959) or whether he is a Soviet placeman intended to help Sudanese rebels in their insurrection. The tale is told through a series of reports, letters, debriefings, taped telephone conversations and dispatches. It’s also very funny, the star character being 6 foot 8 inch Oxford-educated Prince Kalash el Khatar who takes his friends, including Miernik and his sister, a British agent and his sexually incontinent girlfriend as well as the steady American secret agent, Paul Christopher, on a mad road trip from Geneva to Vienna, Bratislava, Rome, Naples, Cairo and the Nile Valley into the deserts of Sudan (?an Ian Dury lyric) in a massive Cadillac. It conjured images of the B52s singing their way to the Love Shack. Khatar is extremely eloquent and attractive to all women; the reason why he was expelled from Oxford, “I was found by a languid don with three unclothed English girls in my college room. Poor fellow never imagined that heterosexuality existed on such a scale.”
It’s by no means pure frivolity, there are some distressingly violent episodes as well as an extremely tense but brilliantly planned escape across the Iron Curtain.
It’s by no means pure frivolity, there are some distressingly violent episodes as well as an extremely tense but brilliantly planned escape across the Iron Curtain.
November 27, 2021
Picked this up because I saw an interview with Anthony Bourdain where he said it was one of his favorite spy novels. I can kind of see why: it’s basically a buddy road trip movie. An American spy, a British spy, a Polish spy and a Sudanese prince drive a Cadillac from Geneva to Khartoum. It’s about as ridiculous as it sounds. The silly premise aside, I thought the way it was presented (as a series of files in a case report) made it more interesting and I don’t think I would have been into it if it hadn’t been as narratively inventive. It’s not terrible but I don’t know if I’m ever going to be as obsessed with this guy like I am with Le Carre. Supposedly this author has been called the “American Le Carre” because he too was also a former spy, but Le Carre is a way better writer and has a much better sense of the moral dubiousness of the world of espionage. (I have also seen this guy called a “conservative Le Carre” which tracks, although it just makes him less interesting because part of the reason why Le Carre is so good is because he doesn’t believe in absolute Western exceptionalism.)
February 2, 2022
I had come across an article that named McCarry as possibly the best American writer of espionage. Given my 30+ years as a public librarian with a specialty in adult reading I was surprised to not be familiar with him (although most of his novels came out before my work life). So I got this first in his Paul Christopher series. This was written in the 1970s but is set in 1959. It was structured as a series of reports, transcripts, and journal entries that comprise the Miernik dossier. Miernik is a Polish man who works for an international agency in Geneva. It appears that it is an open secret (at least in the right circles) that this agency is heavily staffed by special agents from intelligence agencies from around the world. One of those is Paul Christopher. Everyone assumes everyone else is an agent while trying to protect their own identity as such. This makes for a sort of wry overlay to the story. There are also sentences like, "he wanted to ...get back to Vienna to catch the early evening shift of prostitutes." The tone of the book is not melancholy like Le Carre nor humorous or tongue in cheek, but has a kind of serious intelligence that is aware of all the ironic conflicts of the world of espionage. Constructed such as it was character development was primarily second hand as characters comment as what they see of the actions and assumed motivations of others. I'm assuming other books in the series are constructed differently and would be interested in seeing how this changes the tone of the book.
June 26, 2022
McCarry reminds me of Eric Ambler. For a start, it's a similar era - The Miernik Dossier was first published in 1973. The sardonic wit is similar, too, but the author has taken greater risks with this novel. Instead of telling his tale - or showing it - from one or more of the characters' points of view in the conventional manner, he's assembled it by means of intelligence reports, covert eavesdropping, radio transmissions and diary entries. It works a treat - though of course none of the several intelligent agencies and their operatives - U.S., British, Polish, Soviet - would ever have committed so many words to paper in reality even in the Cold War analogue era. He's also adept at moving from the dank borderlands of the Soviet empire with its guard dogs, barbed wire, watchtowers and terrible food to the exotic deserts of Egypt and Sudan. It's the character of Miernik and those of the two women, Zofia and Ilona, especially, that hold everything together so well, along with the extraordinary Sudanese princeling, Kalash. Now I'm off to try to find more of the author's work.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 189 reviews