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The Charm School

by Nelson DeMille (Goodreads Author)

4.21 of 5 stars 4.21 · rating details · 13,227 ratings · 658 reviews

#1 New York Times bestselling author, Nelson DeMille, delivers an explosive thriller of international intrigue and high-voltage political tension set in contemporary Russia.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...more

Paperback, 816 pages

Published July 1st 1999 by Grand Central Publishing (first published January 1st 1988)

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Apr 27, 2013 Chipper rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A spy-mystery from Demille, when Demille was a younger writer still developing his sarcastic wit. Even then, he could make a seemingly improbable story believable and highly entertaining. For anyone over 40 who remembers the tail-end of the long and mistrust-filled Cold War, this book will resonate.

As usual, DeMille weaves an imaginative story involving characters you love, spies in the late 1980's, the American Embassy in Moscow, a bit of Russian history, Vietnam MIAs, a training school for Sov...more

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Mar 20, 2013 Veeral rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: spy-fiction, thriller, mystery

Welcome to Mrs. Ivanova's Charm School, a top secret "facility" where they teach Russian spies to pass themselves off as Americans to even a real American. Then off to the US of A with a fake identity (Non-Russian, of course) where they would live as American citizens and would pass on the state secrets to their homeland and gradually, would get a virtual hold on the entire country. Who would teach them? The MIAs (missing in action) from the Vietnam War who were captured and flown illegitimately...more Welcome to Mrs. Ivanova's Charm School, a top secret "facility" where they teach Russian spies to pass themselves off as Americans to even a real American. Then off to the US of A with a fake identity (Non-Russian, of course) where they would live as American citizens and would pass on the state secrets to their homeland and gradually, would get a virtual hold on the entire country. Who would teach them? The MIAs (missing in action) from the Vietnam War who were captured and flown illegitimately to the USSR from Vietnam.

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I read this book purely because of the subject matter it dealt with. Have you ever wondered what happens to a soldier when he is considered MIA in any war? If luck is on his side, then he is probably dead. But if it is not, it's more than likely that the enemy has him and they are not going to acknowledge his existence. Ever. And sadly, there is little one can do about that as there is bound to be a severe lack of evidence to raise any legitimate inquiry.

But more often than not, it's incompetency and cavalier attitude on the part of that country's politicians that these men are doomed to live as prisoners for life. After all, they have served their purpose of fighting a war for their country, but now it's time for the peace talks and improving relations, so such minor and inconsequential hurdles should be ignored for the "greater" good.

Look on the web and you will not find a single country which has fought a war that is not being accused of wrongfully imprisoning MIAs of its enemies and denying their existence. Think of the devastation it may wrought on the psyche of the family members of that MIA who are never going to know for sure whether their beloved one is dead or alive.

So regardless of your nationality, try to spare a moment and think about these poor souls, because if your country has fought a war in the past 35-50 years, chances are that some of your countrymen who were listed as MIA at that time are still alive and being tortured daily for their patriotism.

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Now about The Charm School. "The Charm School" felt 200 pages too long. Normal dialogues between characters seemed rather clunky to me. Especially intimate conversation between the main characters Sam Hollis and Lisa Rhodes felt really gawky most of the times. But I liked the dry witticism that Nelson DeMille has apparently deemed essential to render to almost all of his characters whenever they were trying to outfox each other. Sadly, all the Russians were depicted stereo-typically in the book. I would have liked to see better developed characters on the Russian side.

But thankfully, last 100 pages were very exciting and the ending also seemed quiet logical to me.

4 stars(less)

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Sep 13, 2008 Jeanette rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: suspense-thriller, four-star-fiction, russia, spy-fiction, all-fiction

This is one doozy of a spy novel! Especially for those of us who grew up during the Cold War and remember how mistrustful we were of the Russkies.

I read this in print many years ago and just recently listened to the audio version. I've read several of this author's novels in the John Corey series, but this stand alone trumps them all. I believe it was his first novel (??), and I think it's his best.

Sam Hollis and Lisa Rhodes work at the American embassy in Moscow. They stumble upon information...more

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Apr 14, 2013 R.L. Anderson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of the best Cold War thrillers ever! A real page turner that I couldn't put down. Also very educational, as it describes details of the lives of American diplomats working in a US embassy in a hostile (at the time) nation, the old Soviet Union. One little detail that sticks in my mind is the mention that US diplomats are some of the most patriotic Americans you could ever hope to meet--but yet they are just not "into" the popular culture. Hmmmmm.... That sounds strange, doesn't it? Well--the...more

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Oct 15, 2012 Paul Thompson added it · review of another edition

“Whenever you are unhappy, go to Russia. Anyone who has come to understand that country will find himself content to live anywhere else.” As the two countries patch their post-war relationship, a severe conflict in Nelson Demille’s The Charm School, threatens to destroy any trust built up between America and Russia. The life of a Russian common citizen is personally displayed and backed up by the constant stream of action filled plot.
The story begins with Greg Fisher, a student from America cu...more

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Dec 03, 2011 Elaine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Detente It's French in origin and means loosening or relaxation. Nowadays it's come to mean agreement or peaceful negotiations.
Detente refers to an easing of international tension. It generally is used to describe the attempts to lower tensions in the Cold War.it is used to refer to the time when there is ease of tension between united states and former soviet union
1: the relaxation of strained relations or tensions (as between nations); also : a policy promoting this2: a period of détente

What...more

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Nov 03, 2011 Brian rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

* One of the last Cold War novels of the Cold War period. Published in 1988, the book, with its POW/MIA theme--and its setting in a mighty USSR--is situated more comfortably in the decade of Rambo than in the political reality of the late eighties/early nineties. In '89, the Berlin Wall came down and in '91, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. In this context, it's amusing, in a way, and quite impossible to take seriously. Fortunately, this is fiction and none of that really matters. Exce...more * One of the last Cold War novels of the Cold War period. Published in 1988, the book, with its POW/MIA theme--and its setting in a mighty USSR--is situated more comfortably in the decade of Rambo than in the political reality of the late eighties/early nineties. In '89, the Berlin Wall came down and in '91, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved. In this context, it's amusing, in a way, and quite impossible to take seriously. Fortunately, this is fiction and none of that really matters. Except for some of the technology, this could just as easily have been written two or three decades earlier. Spiritually, it stands alongside The Manchurian Candidate, and evokes memories of an earlier time and a different, in some ways more frightening, world.

* Sure, it's too long, but that's less a criticism than an observation of style. The hero, Sam Hollis, may be a man of few words, but pithiness isn't really part of DeMille's literary toolbox. For one thing, I enjoyed many of the book's lengthy dialogues, which reminded me of all the times, in other books, I've wondered just when it was that the characters actually communicated to each other something besides plot points.

* Speaking of plot, though...What had to happen was simple: the Charm School itself had to live up to the opening of the novel, which is when we first hear of it. The opening is a wonderful grabber, both spooky and full of impending doom. But a lot of books start out well--because there's still a sense of mystery. The real test is what happens when the veils start to fall. Here, DeMille seems to have started with the Charm School, his central mystery, and then worked backward to that terrific opening. True, when all is revealed, it's no longer spooky, exactly, but it's just as dreadful.

* Don't expect complex characters or deep political philosophy, of course: this is a thriller, after all. But there's enough ambiguity so that if you take the time to think about it (not required), you can come up with some pretty interesting questions.(less)

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Oct 08, 2011 Geoffrey Sim rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first time I've read a spy novel and I am surprised that I enjoyed it this much. Nelson Demille is very talented in depicting vivid scenes that allow the audience to easily translate words into visual images or maybe I can relate easier because I am prone to watch drab TV shows like 24.

It is also hard to find authors that build characters to have opinions about other people, culture and cultural comparisons, albeit prejudice to a certain extent. This novel is about the Cold War (som...more

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Dec 02, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The unlikely premise of this thriller is so scary and diabolical that it draws you into the book like a magnet. What if there was a school in Russia that trained Russians how to be Americans? What if those "Americans" were mainstreamed into our society to "report back" to Russia? What if the instructors @ this supposed "Charm School" were POWs from the Vietnam War? This is a 536 page book that I could not put down. I loved the fact that the characters' behaviors were impossible to predict. Also,...more

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Mar 22, 2011 Christian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Feb 16, 2012 Brie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, mystery

I'm not sure how many years have gone by since I read this book but it has been quite a few. I initially picked it up after having read The General's Daughter, which I loved. But every other Nelson DeMille book I have read has fallen way short of my expectations.

As I remember, this story was still pretty good and rather interesting, it just took awhile to get anywhere. DeMille tends to take his time getting his plots going (I remember The General's Daughter being an exception to this). This book...more

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Oct 30, 2011 Yvann S rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“Hello. Anything exciting happening?” “Yes, but it’s happening in Rome.”

Rich frat boy Gregory Fisher is driving his Trans Am across Europe. Because he can. When he gets to Russia he is mildly amused by the Big Brother control – until he meets an American war pilot, MIA since Vietnam, in the woods. He races on to Moscow to pass the message on to the attaché there, but something sinister seems to have happened to him since he made that phone call…

This thriller had plenty of potential. Gormless ric...more

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Nov 06, 2011 Arun Divakar rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Espionage stories set during the premise of the cold war are probably the most alluring of all backdrops that thriller writers can think of. Two of the world's super powers while in all external appearances behaved like bosom buddies hid daggers beneath their smiles and behind closed rooms plotted how to outwit each other. While this was going on the world would have lived in perennial trepidation of an impending holocaust. But then in 1991, the USSR vanished and the soviet bloc suddenly ceased...more

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Jan 28, 2011 Chris Schaeffer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Charm School by Nelson DeMille was an extremely long, detailed look into a fictional scenario in which the Russian KGB had a secret spy school for the past two decades. Despite the length of the book, over 700 pages in the paperback, I found the book to be engrossing from the beginning to the end. A flaw in many long books is the overwhelming number of characters, but DeMille doesn’t compound the complexity of this novel with too many characters. Instead he gives depth to a limited number of...more

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May 20, 2012 Mike Tueros rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've long been a fan of Nelson Demille, but had not yet had the opportunity to pick up the Charm School - I'm disappointed to say that it wasn't one of my favorites, and may be my least quite actually. The premise of the book is mindblowing - a Russian school outside the city limits of Moscow that has imprisoned American POW's from the Vietnam War, and are using them to train Russian agents into "perfect" Americans; with intimate knowledge of our tastes, likes, dislikes, terminology, regional ac...more I've long been a fan of Nelson Demille, but had not yet had the opportunity to pick up the Charm School - I'm disappointed to say that it wasn't one of my favorites, and may be my least quite actually. The premise of the book is mindblowing - a Russian school outside the city limits of Moscow that has imprisoned American POW's from the Vietnam War, and are using them to train Russian agents into "perfect" Americans; with intimate knowledge of our tastes, likes, dislikes, terminology, regional accents and facial expressions. The graduated students, of which there are approximately 3,000 in this novel, have been planted in the US and live amongst the general population; some are in the Armed Forces; some elected officials - the KGB in the midst of Americana. The Charm School is discovered by accident as an American tourist in Russia, Greg Foster, takes a few wrong turns in the Moscow countryside and meets up by chance a recently escaped prisoner of the school, Jim Dodson. Dodson relates details of the school to Foster with instructions to get to the American embassy to share and hopefully ignite an escape for the 300 plus American's trapped inside the school as instructors. Sam Hollis, the American attache, and Lisa Rhodes take the initial information from Foster and subsequently get embroiled in the pursuit of the truth and how to rescue the hostages and terminate the training at the school. Woven through the novel are the Type A males Demille fans have come to expect (in Hollis, Seth Alevy - the CIA agent, and Colonel Burva, the antagonist and commandant of the school). All of this suggests a great story - but where it didn't quite work for me is the relationship between Hollis and Rhodes, which happens too fast and with a significant age disparity, and some of the side trips which detail life in Russia and politics of the time, but were frankly at times boring. The book has an exciting conclusion - and although not one of my favorites, a compelling read for DeMille fans. (less)

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Apr 14, 2013 Stephen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A new television series called ' The Americans' ...about embedded spies in the United States reminded me of a favorite book from 25 years ago ....Nelson DeMille's ' The Charm School '. So I picked it up and started reading it again. And it still is just as captivating !
Gregory Fisher, an American visiting Russia goes off the main road leading to Moscow and discovers something he shouldn't find. He stumbles across an American prisoner , Major Jack Dodson . He relays this information to the Ameri...more

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Oct 11, 2011 Steve Miller rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm a sucker for espionage stories from World War II and the Cold War. This was an old book that had been passed around and finally ended up in my lap. It's dripping with irony. From the doubts the characters have about whether America can ultimately defeat the Soviet Union (this book was published less than two years before the fall of the Eastern Bloc countries began in the summer and fall of 1989) and doubts about the strategies used ("We think we can outspend them." We did, you ninny!) actua...more

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Jul 13, 2011 Gerald Sinstadt rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: crime

Nelson DeMille, a versatile author whose Long Island adventure yarns make good reading, is proud of The Charm School, pointing out in an introduction that it has been in print since 1988. The setting is the Soviet Union of that era. Colonel Sam Hollis, an attaché at the US Embassy in Moscow, is in fact a spy. Ill-advisedly - not to say improbably - his attraction for Lisa Rhodes, a member of the Information Staff, leads him to allow her to become his espionage side-kick. They investigate a myste...more Nelson DeMille, a versatile author whose Long Island adventure yarns make good reading, is proud of The Charm School, pointing out in an introduction that it has been in print since 1988. The setting is the Soviet Union of that era. Colonel Sam Hollis, an attaché at the US Embassy in Moscow, is in fact a spy. Ill-advisedly - not to say improbably - his attraction for Lisa Rhodes, a member of the Information Staff, leads him to allow her to become his espionage side-kick. They investigate a mysterious, off-limits Soviet encampment near Borodino. When they are discovered, Hollis kills two KGB guards. From there, the plot curdles until Sam and Lisa find themselves prisoners on the inside of what is the Charm School of the book's title.

There are many twists, betrayal and duplicity, violence and killing. By the end, the murder count is beyond reckoning, beyond believing. Yet the pace only quickens in bursts. This is a book of 700 pages. There are times when it reads like a guide to life in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Religion and iconography are explored. In later chapters technical details confronting a pilot in flight are lengthy and best skimmed through. Above all, no opportunity is lost to draw comparisons between Soviet tyranny and the Way of Life in the Land of the Free. Guess which of the two regimes the reader is invited to admire?

A reluctant third star was almost withheld because of a writer's tic that grew more irritating with each repetition. DeMille frequently dilutes a noun with 'rather.' Something is "rather embarrassing," someone is "rather good-looking," (or else "rather short'), an atmosphere is "rather nice," a party is "rather uninhibited." Simply strike out 'rather' in those and all the other examples and see if the meaning is damaged. The same could be said of "somewhat forlorn," "somewhat calmer," "Somewhat better," "somewhat important," "somewhat surprised," etc, etc.

Maybe DeMille wrote before Universities ran Creative Writing courses.(less)

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Nov 10, 2011 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Those Who Enjoy Spy Thrillers

Recommended to Lisa (Harmonybites) by: Gerri; The Complete Idiot's Guide to the Ultimate Reading List

Shelves: contemporary, crime, fiction, mystery, novels, popular-fiction, suspense, ultimate-reading-list, romance

DeMille was recommended on The Ultimate Reading List for World of Honor. I chose The Charm School instead because it's the favorite DeMille book of a friend whose reading tastes I trust. Mind you, this same friend feels conflicted about DeMille. She says she finds a misogynist streak in DeMille's novels and stopped reading him after Plum Island. This particular book, even though I was alerted to the issue the book didn't strike me as misogynistic and the major female character was capable and sy...more DeMille was recommended on The Ultimate Reading List for World of Honor. I chose The Charm School instead because it's the favorite DeMille book of a friend whose reading tastes I trust. Mind you, this same friend feels conflicted about DeMille. She says she finds a misogynist streak in DeMille's novels and stopped reading him after Plum Island. This particular book, even though I was alerted to the issue the book didn't strike me as misogynistic and the major female character was capable and sympathetic. There were a couple of moments a bit jarring that way I might not have noticed if the issue hadn't come up. A remark of the female love interest that our hero shouldn't worry she's one of those "liberated women" who think they can do anything a man can, and my she does seem a bit clingy, and the man a bit all, who can understand women? But, not on the whole anything that bothered me.

The book is set in the Soviet Union right before the Berlin Wall came down and the Soviet empire broke up. When, whatever the talk of glastnost, the cold war between it and the United States was still fairly chilly and people feared Nuclear war. Into that land comes a young American, Gregory Fisher. As he puts it, the "excitement of being a tourist in the Soviet Union, he decided, had little to do with the land (dull) the people (drab) or the climate (awful). The excitement derived from being where relatively few Westerners went...a nation that was a police state. The ultimate vacation: a dangerous place."

That pretty much sums up the appeal--and the excitement--of the novel itself. Fisher soon encounters a man claiming to be an American POW held against his will at "Mrs Ivanova's Charm School." The major premise is farfetched, but I have to give DeMille credit, he dealt with my major objections just well enough to suspend my disbelief for the course of the novel.

Soon three people at the United States Consulate are involved in investigating Fisher's claims. Lisa Rhodes, a press attache who loves the old Russian culture perhaps too much; Seth Alevy, the CIA station officer who hates the regime perhaps too much, and Colonel Sam Hollis, a defense attache who having served in Vietnam cares perhaps too much about the fate of missing POWs. None are objective, and the three have a messy entangled relationship with each other. But it's not so much those three characters as the portrait of the Soviet Union, it's Czarist past and the hints of the future to come that fascinated me.

Besides which it was an engrossing espionage thriller that not only never stopped being suspenseful through over 600 pages, but turned the screws with each part. And the twist at the end was pretty stellar.(less)

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May 30, 2011 Dorrie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A taut and quick-paced story of suspense and espionage based on the premise that American pilots captured in Vietnam during the Vietnamese War and classified as MIA were actually sold to the Russians to serve as unwilling teachers to future Russian KGB operatives. These operatives, after being trained and fully immersed in American ways in the "Charm School," hidden in the Russian countryside, were then placed in American society with the objective of infiltrating all ranks of government. Intell...more

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Jan 16, 2013 Andrea rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

I don't think I've given one star before but this book was such a disappointment I can't possibly do anything else. I've read and enjoyed a couple of other thrillers by this author, so I gave him the benefit of the doubt and persisted with this stinker -- but my perseverance was not rewarded. I realize it was written in the late 1980s, but even so the evil Russians and the noble Americans (complete with flaws of course, since shucks, nobody's perfect)were caricatures from a comic book in the 195...more

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Jan 16, 2010 Marnie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found this to be a very engaging Cold War story set in Russia & shadowing the embassy lives of Sam Hollis, Lisa Rhodes, and Seth Alevy. An American tourist named Gregory Fisher alerts the embassy that he has come in contact with Major Jack Dodson, an escapee from Miss Ivanova's Charm School, the impressively successful espionage "school" where Russians are taught to become Americans and are used to gather intelligence in America. After Fisher turns up dead, Hollis is on a mission to find a...more

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Oct 25, 2012 Theresa rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Hmm...I can not decide to give this book three or four stars. It's a great spy novel and rather interesting, however it took awhile to get to the plot. I feel like the book could have been about 100 pages shorter.

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Dec 28, 2010 Kate Woods Walker rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Turgid exposition that describes every plodding step our hero makes, hamhanded propaganda, one cardboard woman who would be right at home on Mickey Spillaine's lap, Soviet villains who display every Reagan-era leitmotif Americans were conditioned to despise (until we turned the tables in the Bush era and became the torturing, anti-due process monsters we once fought)--what's not to loathe about this book?

Author Nelson DeMille did manage to create a bit of mounting suspense, with some nifty wri...more

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Jul 24, 2010 Cinnamonhopes rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: someone lying on the beach

This is yet another random book I found sitting around the house. Written in that amazingly original 'Cold-War-oh-God-Russia-is-up-to-no-Good' genre, this was pretty much a summer book. Even less food for thought than a Stephen King novel, it was just interesting enough to make me keep reading, but not enough so that I would attempt to give it another reading. It was ok as far as a way to kill time that didn't involve television.

A note on the actual plot: when one writes a spy novel wherein the...more

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Jul 13, 2009 vicki_girl rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: format-deadtree, own, fiction, fiction_realistic, fiction_realistic_contemp, fiction_realistic_contemp_1980-now

I bought this book cheap at a used book store, based on a glowing recommendation from a passing aquaintance. Unfortunately I don't think that this person and I have the same taste in books.

Overall the storyline was rather interesting. I don't want to spoil it, so I will just say that the premise of the Charm School in the title was intriguing, but the execution didn't make me want to read more of Demille's novels. I felt like 250 pages out of the first 300 could have been cut out and would have...more

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Jun 10, 2012 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

After finishing the book, I've decided I liked it... It's another one of those "takes forever to get somewhere" kind of reads. Overall it's good but s l o w. There is a lot of superfluous text that made me skim through paragraphs (and pages) just to get to a pertinent part. It left me wishing it were condensed, moved faster and focused on the plot rather than adding so much needless information. I felt it was about 100 pages too long. The first 200 pages were painfully slow...but once the plot r...more

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Aug 23, 2009 Malcolm rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A Cold War thriller.

It's a bit thin on its character development in one area, but overall -- it's a good romp through the Russian woods and countryside -- as well as into the streets and politics of Moscow.

DeMille does a nice job of enriching the almost casually violent animosity that the US and Soviet Union shared after 5 decades of stand-off.

Set in Russia, it begins innocently enough tracking a vacationing US student across the country -- and then drops the seat out and leaves you looking for...more

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Sep 27, 2011 Laura Wood rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

If I were to judge this book on plot alone, I would give it five stars. Set in the 1980s, The Charm School tells the story of U.S. government agents who attempt to rescue American POWs from Vietnam who were secretly shipped to the Soviet Union. The POWs then became "instructors" of American English and culture to Soviet agents who wanted to pass as Americans. I can imagine this book would have been terrifying in 1988 when it was published. Anyway, it was an interesting snapshot of the times and...more

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Feb 16, 2009 Stacey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009-books, audio-book

I was introduced to Nelson Demille's books beginning with Plum Island. From that day on I was hooked on John Corey and have since read all of the books with him in them.
I've had a hard time, though, finding as much entertainment in Demille's other books--until now! And I must say, it is probably all because I got the book on CD instead of trying to read it. I'm certain I would have quit reading The Charm School after the first few chapters solely because of the Russian language. It reminded me o...more

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About Nelson DeMille

Nelson Richard DeMille was born in New York City on August 23, 1943 to Huron and Antonia (Panzera) DeMille. He moved as a child with his family to Long Island. In high school, he played football and ran track.

DeMille spent three years at Hofstra University, then joined the Army and attended Officer Candidate School. He was a First Lieutenant in the United States Army (1966-69) and saw action as an...more

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