First published in 1973
Paul Christopher, a character in The Miernik Dossier who appears in most of Charles McCarry's subsequent espionage novels, writes in a report: "There is an artistry to what we are doing: spies are like novelists--except that spies use living people and real places to make their works of art." McCarry knows something about the similarities of spies and novelists, having been a CIA operative himself before commencing his career as a writer of spy novels. The Miernik Dossier is his first, and it is excellent.
The story is told in a series of documents: reports, transcripts of recorded conversations, cables, diary entries, and the like. A drawback of this format is the difficulty of developing a character's personality through documents. McCarry solved that problem by having Christopher (an American agent) write very thorough, engaging reports, complete with verbatim accounts of dialog, descriptions of clothing and scenery and body odors, discussions of his observations, fears, and thought processes, and other material that helps set the scene and flesh out the characters. (Amusingly, a document prepared by one of Christopher's handlers complains that Christopher's reports lack organization and are filled with extraneous information.) Perhaps real spies don't write entertaining reports that work well as chapters in a novel, but maybe McCarry did just that when he worked for the CIA. In any event, Christopher's reports (and to a lesser extent, his British counterpart's and Miernik's diary) provide the flavor that makes the novel work as well as it does.
And it does work well. The story is filled with intrigue as the American and British agents accompany a member of the Sudanese royal family and a Polish diplomat on a road trip from Geneva to Sudan. The two spies are operating under diplomatic cover; each knows that the other is an operative but neither can admit it. They suspect that the Pole is also a spy and that he may have something to do with a Soviet-run terrorist group that has recently formed in Sudan, but they're never quite sure what role the colorful, irascible Pole is playing: is he a spy, and if so, what is his mission in Sudan? Add to the mix the Pole's sister and the British spy's girlfriend, both of whom join the trip, and the story becomes almost comical as everyone suspects everyone else of being something other than what he or she seems. Of course, when things are not as they seem, there is a potential for mistaken actions, and in this novel, that risk leads to a powerful ending. Some fast-paced action scenes in the desert add additional excitement to a story that is never in danger of becoming dull.
The Miernik Dossier teaches a lesson that applies not just to intelligence agencies but to all law enforcement agencies: once an intelligence analyst (or, for that matter, a police detective) begins to theorize that someone is a spy (or a criminal), they are likely to look for evidence to support that theory and risk losing their objectivity. For its excellent illustration of that principle as well as its riveting story and sympathetic characters, I recommend this novel.
RECOMMENDED