McCarry had been an undercover operative for the Central Intelligence Agency for nine years before turning to writing, and his books were hailed for their apparent authenticity and realistic depiction of tradecraft.

Like all of McCarry's books, this one displays "an almost Jamesian awareness of [its] European locale, the special authenticity of a loving expatriate writing of an adopted foreign land.

"[2] As the book progresses, however, in a subplot nearly as important as the primary one involving espionage, his wife creates her own secret world of lovers to try to break Christopher out of his detachment from her.

His reputation within the shadowy agency for which he works, obviously the CIA but never actually called that, is high: his colleagues and superiors consider him to be intelligent, imaginative, coldblooded, and implacable.

Elsewhere, "as a matter of professional caution, he booked table reservations in a false name, and made certain that he did not eat at the same restaurant, or drink at the same bar, more than two or three times a year."

Clarke's or the Frenchmen behind the zinc bar at the Dôme, though others seemed to attach importance to being known by name to these contemptuous men.In most of McCarry's novels, both those about Christopher and those about his cousins the Hubbards, there are characters who turn up in more than one of the books.

In The Secret Lovers we have Paul Christopher, who had been in two earlier books, and the first appearance of his wife, Cathy, as well as David Patchen, a Harvard roommate, fellow soldier in World War II, and colleague in their intelligence agency.