The Budapest Escape

Bill Rapp is a long-time CIA employee, and he writes well about this classic cold war era story. This is his sixth novel. The 1956 Hungarian Uprising lasted about 2 weeks before the Soviets slammed the door on it, killing more than 100,000 people in the process. Karl Baier was the CIA agent who was primarily responsible for running a deep mole, Josef Kovacs, known by his handle, Bluebird. Baier had recently barely escaped from Hungary to Austria, but sensing that Bluebird was not safe, and at great risk to his own life, he snuck back into Hungary to try to bring him to the West, despite the fact that the CIA bosses in Washington had specifically prohibited him from doing so. The action in this story mostly took place in Budapest and Vienna, and Rapp provided wonderful descriptions of both cities. Contributing to the action was Baier’s wife, Sabine, another CIA asset. Both Karl and Sabine  were compelling characters. Necessarily, Rapp moved his story along with dialogue among the principals from the US, Austria, Hungary, and Russia. It this era has interest to you, then this book will be a very good read. I was totally entertained by his story.