Will I love The Tears of Autumn?

McCarry has never had the wide acclaim that my first two picks have had, and that’s a shame.

The Tears of Autumn is set in late 1963. Kennedy has been assassinated, and Vietnam has come to a fast boil. McCarry’s protagonist, Paul Christopher, an introspective poet and burned-out spy, takes it upon himself to find out the truth behind the rumor that the Vietnamese were behind Kennedy’s killing.

It’s a novel that spans continents and provides professional insight into the motivation and temperament of the spy world. Like Le Carré, McCarry’s style is sparse, lean, and enthralling. In a world… show more.

I love McCarry’s books because not only are they true to the genre, they are historically accurate (and often quite humorous).

Moreover, his spy “tradecraft” works because he was a deep-cover CIA officer—the ones who get shot if they’re caught. His characters are realistic, not supermen—they have feelings, fears, and families—and they struggle against enormous odds.

In Tears of Autumn, American spy Paul Christopher believes he knows who assassinated JFK, a theory that pits him against a Vietnamese family seeking revenge for the death of its patriarch, as well as his bosses in the CIA. To survive, Christopher must… show more.