Bill Rapp’s real story is just as interesting as the ones he makes up. The former CIA Analyst began working in West Germany back when the country was still divided after World War II. He also worked in Turkey and the Aegean, Canada, Iraq and London. It wasn’t where he set out to go. Pre-CIA, Rapp’s love for history led him to an early career as a professional historian. With a PhD from Vanderbilt University, he taught history before finding the inspiration to take his passions further, eventually finding his calling first with the CIA, and later, as an author.
The CIA is a bit of a family affair for the Rapps. Bill's wife, Cynthia (better known as Didi), also works for the Agency, and as Dead Drop readers were among the first to learn, was recently named Deputy Director for Analysis.
Now, with a series of novels under his belt, including The Hapsburg Variation (A Cold War Thriller), Tears of Innocence, Berlin Breakdown, Burning Altars, and Angel in Black, UnderCover caught up with Rapp to talk about his journey to become a novelist, and about his upcoming book, The Budapest Escape, scheduled for publication later this year.
UnderCover: How did you decide that you had this passion for being an author when you've done so many interesting things in your career?
Rapp: I've always loved reading history and literature. That was my background. I started my professional life as an academic historian but that was a little too sedentary and I needed something a little more active, so I came to Washington and started my career in October of 1981 with the CIA.
I've always had to read a lot of history and I always loved that, but for some reason I always had a real attraction to fiction and when I was in grad school to take a break from history books, I started reading mysteries and thrillers as kind of an escape thing and I developed a real affinity for the genre. I always sort of toyed with the idea and thought it would be fun to write something and maybe get almost as good as somebody like Raymond Chandler or Eric Ambler, some of the classic guys. I was station for a while in West Berlin and then-reunified Berlin from '89 to '91 when the Wall fell and Germany reunified, and I thought with this kind of experience, if I can't turn this into a mystery or a thriller, I haven't got much hope. So I started dabbling in that as well as private eye detective fiction. Quite frankly, it took me about a dozen years before anybody was interested in publishing what I wrote.
UnderCover: We hear that so many times when we talk to authors, that it's that kind of persistence that pushes you through rejection to the point of actually getting published. So what was it that kept you going during that 12 years to keep pressing onward? Where did you find the inner will to believe that if you stuck with it, it would work out.
Rapp: You know, when I think back, I really don't know. Sometimes I wonder what I was thinking. I'm glad I did it, obviously, but I think it was just determination and the fact that I really wanted to make a contribution and I thought I had something to say.
While I was still trying to find my voice for private eye detective fiction, which was the first stuff I got published, I was driving along with my wife and I said, "You know, I've written a lot about detective fiction in the area where I grew up outside Chicago but I'd kind of like to write a story set in immediate post-War Berlin." I had spent a lot of time in Berlin and we had a wonderful two-year tour there where so much was happening. I had an opening scene in my head but I didn’t really have a story or characters." My wife said, "Well, why don't you base it on my father's experience?" Her father was sent to Berlin right after the war as part of Operation Paperclip which assessed and identified German scientists and German scientific capabilities. (Ed note: There was a book written about Operation Paperclip.)
Her father had moved into a man's house in Dahlem, in the same neighborhood where we had been living in Western Berlin, that had the exact same name, the exact same spelling, and the guy never came back, but my father-in-law brought back a box of mementos from his tour during the War. It included things as mundane as a laundry ticket and I thought that was kind of interesting, so I used it as the point of departure in the story and the story kind of took over from there.
I drafted a manuscript for a follow-on story using the same characters and the second book was set in 1955 Vienna, so my wife said I’d better go to Vienna, just to refresh my memory. We were living in London at the time and just as I was getting on the plane at Heathrow I got a mass email from the publisher saying, "We're no longer doing mysteries and thrillers. Sorry, we're going to focus on Western fiction." They did include an attachment which had a list of other publishers that they thought might be interested in picking up writers, so I sent one of them the standard query letter and the first 50 pages. They responded and said they were interested. We agreed on two books with an offer for a third and The Hapsburg Variation, which came out in 2017, was the first book on that contract, second in the series. The third book in the series, the second one with Coffee Town, is in production now.
UnderCover: Tell us a little bit about your new book that's coming out, the next one in the series, The Budapest Escape.
Rapp: It picks up pretty much where The Hapsburg Variation leaves off. That's set in 1955 Vienna, but it closes with the growing sense of unhappiness and turmoil just across the border in Hungary. The main character, Karl Baier, has been stationed in Vienna and running an asset in Budapest. The asset is highly-placed within the government and as things are starting to collapse, and as Hungary is going into revolt, Baier grows concerned for the safety of his asset and wants to see about bringing him out. He doesn’t want to leave him to be captured or worse.
Without giving too much away, in the face of a Soviet invasion, Baier runs into some trouble and I don't want to say too much more, but he has to face this challenge of, "How do I convince this guy that he needs to leave and how do I get him out and how do I keep him out and get him resettled in the West?"
UnderCover: Who are some of your favorite authors?
Rapp: Eric Ambler. He's one of the old classics but on the more contemporary level, and I'm sure I'll forget some, but Dan Fesperman is very good. He's spent time living in Berlin as well as being an old German hand. We're very close friends with Francine Mathews who publishes either under her true name or a pseudonym, Stephanie Barron, and she writes a variety of things but she has delved into some spy fiction.
I really like Charles McCarry’s stuff and I'd love to have Karl Baier emerge as this sort of iconic character, like Paul Christopher in his novels.
UnderCover: Karl Baier is your main character. I have to ask you the obligatory question about how much of yourself have you written into Baier?
Rapp: A friend in London read Tears of Innocence and said to me that he thought Karl Baier was Bill Rapp. I don't think it’s that much. Baier was my father's mother's maiden name but as far as I can tell, that's about as far as it goes. I mean, Baier is an operations officer and I was an analyst before I moved into management at the Agency. He's a German-American, which is somewhat true to my own family background and he did go to Notre Dame and he does love history, although at Notre Dame he majored in chemistry. That's how he ends up being out there as part of Operation Paperclip in 1945.
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