Available:*
Library | Item Barcode | Call Number | Material Type | Item Category 1 | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Searching... | 30000010357023 | PS3554 D46 C43 1988 | Open Access Book | 1:CREATIVE_G | Searching... |
On Order
Summary
Summary
#1 New York Times bestselling author, Nelson DeMille, delivers an explosive thriller of international intrigue and high-voltage political tension set in contemporary Russia.On a dark road deep inside Russia, a young American tourist picks up a most unusual passenger a U.S. POW on the run with an incredible secret to reveal to an unsuspecting world. The secret concerns "The Charm School," a vast and astounding KGB conspiracy that stands poised against the very heartland of America. Arrayed against this renegade power of the Soviet state are three Americans: an Air Force officer, who will fly one last covert mission into the center of a mad experiment; an embassy liaison, who will have her hopes for a saner superpower balance brutally tested; and the chief of the CIA's Moscow station, who will find his intricate dance of destiny and death reaching its devastating conclusion.
Author Notes
Nelson DeMille was born in New York City on August 23, 1943. He attended Hofstra University for three years, then joined the Army and went to Officer Candidate School. He was commissioned a First Lieutenant and served in Vietnam as an infantry platoon leader with the First Calvary Division. He received the Air Medal, Bronze Star, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry while in the service. He eventually returned to Hofstra University and received a degree in political science and history.
His first writings were NYPD detective novels, but his first major novel, By the Rivers of Babylon, was published in 1978. His other works include Cathedral, The Talbot Odyssey, Word of Honor, The Gold Coast, The General's Daughter, Spencerville, Plum Island, The Lion's Game, Up Country, Night Fall, Wild Fire, and The Quest. His New York Times bestsellers include Radient Angel and The Cuban Affair.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews 2
Publisher's Weekly Review
This highly charged espionage thriller gets off to a stunning start. On the road from Smolensk to Moscow, an American tourist, Gregory Fisher, is confronted by a man on the run: an Air Force major who was shot down over appears from his hotel and soon turns up dead, the victim of a suspicious car crash. Intelligence officer Sam Hollis, press attache Lisa Rhodes and CIA bureau chief Seth Alevy must discover for themselves what is going on at the Charm School. They must also decide whether public revelation of a horrifying KGB operation during the new era of glasnost might not damage American/Soviet relations. In this exciting, polemic novel, DeMille (Word of Honor) limns an authentic portrait of Russian society. He conveys the claustrophobic life of American Embassy officials impossibly restricted in movement, and he creates spirited American agents who dodge and spar wittily with coarse KGB men. Once DeMille brings readers into the Charm School itself, however, he cannot sustain the magic that has propelled the narrative for two-thirds of its generous length. At this point, the plot becomes predictable, and the finale differs little from standard adventure escapes, with a cruel resolution to boot. Still, it's riveting reading most of the way. 100,000 first printing; $150,000 ad/promo. (April) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
The sustained action of this chilling vision of modern Russia starts with a young American tourist phoning the U.S. embassy in Moscow to report an unusual encounter with a U.S. Air Force major in the forest near Borodino. The tourist then vanishes and the officer is identified as a Vietnam MIA. Attaches Sam Hollis and Lisa Rhodes eventually uncover a spy school graduating several hundred ``Americans'' each year and staffed by an unwilling faculty made up of American servicemen missing from Vietnam. The blockbuster ends after a maverick CIA agent pulls off a hair-raising escape to the West, carrying proof of the camp's existence. John North, L.R.C., Ryerson Polytechnical Inst., Toronto (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
