The Old Boys

Four retired CIA agents team up when one of their own goes missing in this spy thriller by the bestselling author of The Tears of Autumn.

Welcome to the world of Charles McCarry's 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 . . .


Paul Christopher, now an aging but remarkably fit seventy-ish, is dining at home with his cousin Horace, also an ex-agent. Dinner is delicious and uneventful. A day later, Paul has vanished. The months pass, Paul's ashes are delivered by a Chinese official to the American consulate in Beijing and a memorial service is held in Washington. But Horace is not convinced that Paul is dead 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. Harassed by American intelligence, hunted by terrorists, Horace Christopher and the Old Boys travel the globe, from Xinjiang to Brazil, from Rome to Tel Aviv, Budapest to Moscow, in search of Paul and the unspeakably dangerous truth.

Praise for Old Boys
"Old Boys is like the best parts of ten John le Carre novels all put together." —Time
"As soon as he began publishing fiction more than three decades ago, Charles McCarry was recognized as a spy novelist of uncommon gifts. . . . McCarry is a careful plotter and an unfussy stylist; he nourishes his narrative with cosmopolitan reflections on the craft. . . . Old Boys is, at heart, a lament for a dying generation of American spies, an elegy for the human twilight, Cocoon with a cloak and dagger." —Washington Post
"McCarry is the best modern writer on the subject of intrigue." —P. J. O'Rourke, The Weekly Standard
"McCarry's latest is an old-fashioned, rollicking adventure that beats Ludlum and Cussler at their own game. . . . McCarry's commitment to [his] fanciful premise is absolute, and the resulting yarn combines the intrepid exploits of John Buchan, the cagey intrigue of Eric Ambler, and the clipped cadences of Dashiell Hammett. Tremendous fun." —Booklist