 First edition | |
| Author | Charles McCarry |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Series | Paul Christopher |
| Genre | Spy novel |
| Published | 1973 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Followed by | The Tears of Autumn |
The Miernik Dossier, published by the Saturday Review Press in 1973, was the first of seven novels by the American novelist Charles McCarry featuring an American intelligence agent named Paul Christopher. Set in 1959 in Europe and Africa during the days of the Cold War, it is narrated in the form of reports, overheard conversations, and various documents from a multitude of sources of different nationalities, supposedly giving the reader an authentic picture of what an actual intelligence operation might be like. McCarry had previously been an undercover operative for the Central Intelligence Agency for nine years, and the book was hailed for its apparent authenticity and realistic depiction of tradecraft. It received excellent reviews, and instantly established McCarry's reputation as one of the foremost American novelists of espionage. Later books by McCarry, nine more in all, expanded from focusing solely on Christopher into what might be considered a chronicle of the Christopher universe: two novels feature his cousins, the Hubbards, and in many of the other Christopher novels his father, mother, one-time wife, and daughter play important and recurring roles. Also in this universe is a 1988 historical novel, The Bride of the Wilderness, about Christopher's ancestors in 17th-century England, France, and Massachusetts. Like all of McCarry's books, this one displays "an almost Jamesian awareness of [its] European locale, the special authenticity of a loving expatriate writing of an adopted foreign land."[1]
- ^ Twentieth Century Crime and Mystery Writers, John M. Reilly, editor, St. Martin's Press New York, 1980, p. 1038