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| Author | Nelson DeMille |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Warner Books |
Publication date | April 1, 1988 |
| Pages | 533 |
| ISBN | 9780446353205 |
| OCLC | 17300504 |
The Charm School is a 1988 spy thriller novel by American author Nelson DeMille, set in the Soviet Union. [1] [2]
In a 2010 FBI investigation, striking similarities were noted between the real life case and DeMille's book. [3]
The novel's hero is U.S Air Force Colonel Sam Hollis, a former F-4 Phantom Fighter pilot [4] who fought in Vietnam. Hollis was shot down during the war [5] and was disqualified from flying. Later on he was transferred to US Air Force Intelligence and served as an intelligence officer and air attaché at the American embassy in Moscow. A young American MBA graduate driving in the Russian countryside encounters another American, claiming to have escaped a secret Russian POW camp—leaving numerous others behind who are still captive and being used to "Americanize" Soviet spies. When the information reaches Hollis, he begins to investigate and discovers a secret[ which? ] so dangerous that might cost him his life.
Spy fiction is a genre of literature involving espionage as an important context or plot device. It emerged in the early twentieth century, inspired by rivalries and intrigues between the major powers, and the establishment of modern intelligence agencies. It was given new impetus by the development of fascism and communism in the lead-up to World War II, continued to develop during the Cold War, and received a fresh impetus from the emergence of rogue states, international criminal organizations, global terrorist networks, maritime piracy and technological sabotage and espionage as potent threats to Western societies. As a genre, spy fiction is thematically related to the novel of adventure, the thriller and the politico-military thriller.
The Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 is a supersonic jet fighter and interceptor aircraft, designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. Its nicknames include: "balalaika", because its planform resembles the stringed musical instrument of the same name; "Ołówek", Polish for "pencil", due to the shape of its fuselage, and "Én Bạc", meaning "silver swallow", in Vietnamese.
Korean Air Lines Flight 007 (KE007/KAL007) was a scheduled Korean Air Lines flight from New York City to Seoul via Anchorage, Alaska. On September 1, 1983, the flight was shot down by a Soviet Sukhoi Su-15 interceptor. The Boeing 747 airliner was en route from Anchorage to Seoul, but owing to a navigational mistake made by the crew, the airliner drifted from its original planned route and flew through Soviet prohibited airspace. The Soviet Air Forces treated the unidentified aircraft as an intruding U.S. spy plane, and destroyed it with air-to-air missiles, after firing warning shots. The Korean airliner eventually crashed into the sea near Moneron Island west of Sakhalin in the Sea of Japan. All 269 passengers and crew aboard were killed, including Larry McDonald, a United States representative. The Soviet Union found the wreckage under the sea two weeks later on September 15 and found the flight recorders in October, but this information was kept secret by the Soviet authorities until 1992, after the country's collapse.
The Cambridge Five was a ring of spies in the United Kingdom that passed information to the Soviet Union during the Second World War and the Cold War and was active from the 1930s until at least the early 1950s. None of the known members were ever prosecuted for spying. The number and membership of the ring emerged slowly, from the 1950s onwards.
On 1 May 1960, a United States U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Air Defence Forces while conducting photographic aerial reconnaissance deep inside Soviet territory. Flown by American pilot Francis Gary Powers, the aircraft had taken off from Peshawar, Pakistan, and crashed near Sverdlovsk, after being hit by a surface-to-air missile. Powers parachuted to the ground and was captured.
Oleg Antonovich Gordievsky, CMG is a former colonel of the KGB who became KGB resident-designate (rezident) and bureau chief in London. He was a double agent, providing information to the British Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) from 1974 to 1985. After being recalled to Moscow under suspicion, he was exfiltrated from the Soviet Union in July 1985 under a plan code-named Operation Pimlico. The Soviet Union subsequently sentenced him to death in absentia.
A sleeper agent, also called sleeper cell, is a spy who is placed in a target country or organization not to undertake an immediate mission, but instead to act as a potential asset if activated. Even if not activated, the "sleeper agent" is still an asset and can still play an active role in sedition, espionage, or possibly treason by virtue of agreeing to act if activated. Sleeper agents may also work in groups of a clandestine cell system with other agents.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 1974 spy novel by British-Irish author John le Carré. It follows the endeavours of taciturn, aging spymaster George Smiley to uncover a Soviet mole in the British Secret Intelligence Service. The novel has received critical acclaim for its complex social commentary—and, at the time, relevance, following the defection of Kim Philby. It has been adapted into both a television series and a film, and remains a staple of the spy fiction genre.
Nelson Richard DeMille is an American author of action adventure and suspense novels. His novels include Plum Island, The Charm School, and The Gold Coast. DeMille has also written under the pen names Jack Cannon, Kurt Ladner, Ellen Kay and Brad Matthews.
George Smiley OBE is a fictional character created by John le Carré. Smiley is a career intelligence officer with "The Circus", the British overseas intelligence agency. He is a central character in the novels Call for the Dead, A Murder of Quality, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, and Smiley's People, and a supporting character in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The Looking Glass War, The Secret Pilgrim and A Legacy of Spies. The character has also appeared in a number of film, television, and radio adaptations of le Carré's books.
Oleg Vladimirovich Penkovsky, codenamed Hero and Yoga was a Soviet military intelligence (GRU) colonel during the late 1950s and early 1960s. Penkovsky informed the United States and the United Kingdom about Soviet military secrets, including the appearance and footprint of Soviet intermediate-range ballistic missile installations and the weakness of the Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile program. This information was decisive in allowing the US to recognize that the Soviets were placing missiles in Cuba before most of them were operational. It also gave US President John F. Kennedy, during the Cuban Missile Crisis that followed, valuable information about Soviet weakness that allowed him to face down Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and resolve the crisis without a nuclear war.
Peter Maurice Wright CBE was a principal scientific officer for MI5, the British counter-intelligence agency. His book Spycatcher, written with Paul Greengrass, became an international bestseller with sales of over two million copies. Spycatcher was part memoir, part exposé detailing what Wright claimed were serious institutional failures he investigated within MI5. Wright is said to have been influenced in his counterespionage activity by James Jesus Angleton, counter-intelligence chief of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1954 to 1975.
Sir Roger Henry Hollis was a British intelligence officer who served with MI5 from 1938 to 1965. He was Director General of MI5 from 1956 to 1965.
Firefox is a thriller novel written by Craig Thomas and published in 1977. The Cold War plot involves an attempt by the CIA and MI6 to steal a highly advanced experimental Soviet fighter aircraft. The chief protagonist is fighter pilot turned spy Mitchell Gant. The book was subject to a 1982 film adaptation produced and directed by Clint Eastwood who also played the role of Gant in the film.
Mitchell Gant is a fictional character in a series of books written by Craig Thomas. His first appearance occurs in the 1977 novel Firefox as a US Air Force major that steals a Russian MiG-31 Firefox fighter aircraft prototype. The prototype uses experimental interfaces between pilot and plane to allow for "thought-activated" flying and combat solutions. Gant, however, has to think in Russian to enable the technology to work.
James W. Hall III is a former United States Army warrant officer and signals intelligence analyst in Germany who sold eavesdropping and code secrets to East Germany and the Soviet Union from 1983 to 1988.
The Talbot Odyssey is a 1984 novel by American author, Nelson DeMille.
Operation Moolah was a United States Air Force (USAF) effort during the Korean War to obtain through defection a fully capable Soviet MiG-15 jet fighter. Communist forces introduced the MiG-15 to Korea on November 1, 1950. USAF pilots reported that the performance of the MiG-15 was superior to all United Nations aircraft, including the USAF's newest plane, the F-86 Sabre. The operation focused on influencing Communist pilots to defect to South Korea with a MiG for a financial reward. The success of the operation is disputable since no Communist pilot defected before the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953. However, on September 21, 1953, North Korean pilot Lieutenant No Kum-Sok flew his MiG-15 to the Kimpo Air Base, South Korea, unaware of Operation Moolah.
Kathleen Maria Margaret Sissmore, OBE (1898–1982), was known as Jane Sissmore and then Jane Archer after her marriage in 1939. In 1929 she became the first female officer in Britain's Security Service, MI5, and was still their only woman officer at the time of her dismissal for insubordination in 1940. She had been responsible for investigations into Soviet intelligence and subversion. She then joined the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), but when Kim Philby, later to be exposed as a double agent, became her boss he reduced her investigative work because he feared she might uncover his treachery.
Graham Russell Mitchell OBE, CB, was an officer of MI5, the British Security Service, between 1939 and 1963, serving as its deputy director general between 1956 and 1963. In 1963 Roger Hollis, the MI5 director general, authorised the secret investigation of Mitchell following suspicions within the Secret Intelligence Service MI6 that he was a Soviet agent. It is now thought unlikely that Mitchell ever was a "mole". Mitchell was an International Master of correspondence chess who represented Great Britain.
Novels by Nelson DeMille | |
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| Joe Ryker |
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| John Sutter |
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| Paul Brenner |
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| John Corey |
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| Stand-alone |
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| Film adaptations |
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