The Last Supper

by Charles McCarry

Paperback, 2008

Call number

MYST MCC

Collection

Publication

The Overlook Press (2008), Edition: Reprint, 400 pages

Description

On a rainy night in Paris, Paul Christopher's lover Molly Benson falls victim to a vehicular homicide minutes after Christopher boards a jet to Vietnam. To explain this seemingly senseless murder, The Last Supper takes its readers back not only to the earliest days of Christopher's life, but also to the origins of the CIA in the clandestine operations of the OSS during World War II. Moving seamlessly from tales of refugee smuggling in Nazi Germany, to OSS-coordinated guerilla warfare against the Japanese in Burma, to the chaotic violence of the Vietnam War, McCarry creates an intimate history of the shadow world of deceit and betrayal that penetrates the psyches of the men and women who live within it.

User reviews

LibraryThing member SeriousGrace
Paul Christopher is a CIA man who was raised around dark secrets. His parents smuggled Jews out of Germany via boat to Denmark during World War II when he was just a child. As a teenager he remembers he and his American father being removed from Germany while his German mother was held behind. This
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separation and the need to find her prompted Paul's father to join the CIA. Following in his father's footsteps after his murder, Paul also joins the "The Outfit." The Last Supper spans all of the major conflicts between World War I and the Vietnam War. Stay on your toes because this is fast paced and involves many different characters who may or may not be spies.
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LibraryThing member sandra.k.heinzman
Picked this up at our cruise ship's library. What a good book; I must read more by this author! It takes place over a number of decades and is out spying. I'm still thnkng about it a day later. Recommend!96
LibraryThing member sandra.k.heinzman
Picked this up at our cruise ship's library. What a good book; I must read more by this author! It takes place over a number of decades and is out spying. I'm still thnkng about it a day later. Recommend!96
LibraryThing member viking2917
Charles McCarry might be the true heir to John Le Carré. His spy novels have plenty of thrills, but focus on the human aspects of espionage, the betrayals, the inability to trust anyone, the costs of being “in the business”.

Nobody knows that cost more than Paul Christopher, McCarry’s best
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known creation. Christopher is an on-again, off-again spy first introduced in The Tears of Autumn, which to my mind presents the most plausible explanation of JFK’s assassination I’ve heard. His girlfriend Molly has been killed for reasons that aren’t entirely clear but are certainly related to Christopher’s intelligence work.

The Last Supper tells the story of the early days of the CIA, moving through time from WWII-era Burma to Vietnam during the war to Communist China, and later years. It paints a deeply detailed back story of Christopher’s parents, and how he came to be who he is. And presents the mystery of who has betrayed Christopher and killed his girlfriend.

In tone and pacing, The Last Supper reminds me most of Le Carré’s A Perfect Spy, which to my mind not just a great spy novel but one of this century’s truly great books. The Last Supper is richly detailed, historically accurate and informative, and a wonderful mystery.
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LibraryThing member RonWelton
Charles McCarry's "The Last Supper" is a masterful spy novel. A kaleidoscope of allusions to the brilliant personages and events of earlier books in the Paul Christoper series are arrayed among the exploits of "the Outfit" during the years after WWII. We are able to discover Paul's heroic heritage
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and tragic youth which presaged his development as an espionage genius. Barnabas Wolkowicz, who, as a child walked with his father "five thousand miles over the Urals, across freezing Siberia, through the burning Gobi," and who has a burning loathing for Yale, which he calls the fool factory, carries the drama, and color through out the novel.
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Pages

400

ISBN

1590200144 / 9781590200148

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