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Old Boys
by Charles McCarry


9.0

based on 11 reviews
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based on 1 vote
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McCarry returns to the world of his legendary character, Paul Christopher, the crack intelligence agent who is as skilled at choosing a fine wine as he is at tradecraft, at once elegant and dangerous, sophisticated and rough-and-ready. As the novel begins, Paul has vanished...But Horace, Christopher's cousin and also an ex-agent, is not convinced that Paul is dead as he is informed and, enlisting the support of four other retired colleagues - a sort of all-star backfield of the old Outfit - Horace gets the "Old Boys" back in the game to find Paul Christopher. [Overlook Press]

Overlook Press, 476 pages
06/03/2004
$25.95

ISBN: 1585675458

Fiction
Mystery & Thrillers

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Kirkus Reviews

Excellent spy thriller in the Anglo-American style.

Library Journal Barbara Conaty

McCarry, a wizard writer, transforms the sturdy ingredients of the spy and suspense genres into a magical brew for our new age. [1 May 2004, p.140]

Los Angeles Times Eugen Weber

His scrumptious writing carries triumphantly from one climax to another and the plot unfolds with vivid velocity to an explosive end.

Booklist David Wright

Tremendous fun. [1 May 2004, p.1514]

The Guardian Mark Lawson

It's an elegy for a generation and style of American spying.

Washington Post Charles Trueheart

A cheerfully convoluted yarn whose tone is by turns mischievous and elegiac.

Daily Telegraph Jessica Mann

As McCarry and his dynamic alter-egos wipe the floor with the opposition, the message is clear: these boys may be old but they are not past it.

The Spectator Michael Carlson

Perhaps McCarry noted the position of "The Da Vinci Code" atop the bestseller lists and decided he could write that with his eyes closed. Or maybe America's elite really do age better than ours do.

Boston Globe Sam Allis

A tale that travels from the outlandish to the absurd. As long as readers don't expect the taut realism we have come to expect from the man, they'll be fine. If they're looking for vintage McCarry, though, this will produce unhappy campers.

Publishers Weekly

The kitchen-sink approach to the plot increasingly strains credibility as the story zips along, and the tension between his all-too-believable "old boys" and the comic-book action is never satisfactorily resolved.

The Economist

Mr McCarry, of all people, should stick with what he knows.

The average user rating for this book is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 1 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Lerato K gave it a9:
Charles McCarry's writing, judging by some of the reviews, is misunderstood. The Paul Christopher saga cannot be understood in one book, and Old Boys is a perfect example of that. The book brings together the many characters of this saga from his previous other books, and most reviewers seem not to have read them. This book is McCarry at his incomparable best! And the characters, as in the Last Supper, round off the Paul Christopher story in a way that McCarry readers have been waiting for for years.

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Old Boys by Charles McCarry

Old Boys
by Charles McCarry