The Charm School
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4.5 • 738 Ratings
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- $1.99
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- $1.99
Publisher Description
A chilling, relentlessly suspenseful story of international intrigue and high-voltage political tension set in contemporary Russia, from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The General's Daughter.
"Highly engaging super-suspense." —Kirkus Reviews
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
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.
Customer Reviews
A Good Read
Interesting and educational for the time and place it was written for. I thoroughly enjoyed the glimpse into the Russian culture and CIA world.
The Charm School ... True to the countries
I have spent considerable time in the former Soviet Union ... some 30 trips between 1997 & 2006. Mr DeMille has captured the gritty reality, the beauty, the pathos, & the absurdity of life inside & outside of the embassy, Moscow, & the villages. And he wrapped it all in a rollicking, thrilling, & sometimes sickening adventure. The consummate evil in the bureaucrats (on both sides) as they engage in their high stakes game-playing seems very real to me, tho I have not experienced it in such a high stakes manner. The contradictory appearance of gratuitous rudeness & extraordinary kindness of the Russian people is dead on!
All this insight into a country and a page-turner of a story ... what's not to like. I (almost) never give the top rating to anything as I know that perfection should not be defined by my limited experience. But this one has to have the top rating.
Way too long and drawn out
Couldn’t get through it