In the Nazis arcane system, Rima is not technically Jewish; nevertheless, she is forced to bear Stutzer's wrath.
The women in Ghosts are its most tragic characters.
The last half of the book flashes forward to 1959, when Christopher, a cleanup hitter for the Outfit, discovers Stutzer in a gloomy European city.
Once quite the dandy (and presumably gay), Stutzer has adapted to the streets, his intense paranoia at being recognized fueling his survival. Stutzer eludes Christopher this time, but the spy is intent on revenge and tracks the unrepentant Nazi to still-desolated Berlin at the time when streets are being torn up and houses razed to make room for the wall.
"Cat stink and the acid smell of long-dead fires lingered in his nostrils. He heard tiny noises in the rubble — the cats again and the rodents. In the velvety darkness he apprehended movement, shapes, the first signs of first light. He tasted and felt a fragment of sausage between two of his teeth. He felt the rough ground beneath his feet. His head itched."
Many critics believe that Charles McCarry is the finest espionage writer working today. Count me in. He writes with precise attention to detail yet manages to encompass the big picture of the bloodiest century in history, avoiding unnecessary drama and excessive heroics. This is the way it really was, the reader thinks upon digesting a McCarry book, which is the finest compliment that can be paid any novelist.
Publication notes:
Christopher's Ghosts
By Charles McCarry
272 pages
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