Metzl, Jamie (Frederic)

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METZL, Jamie (Frederic)

PERSONAL:

Born in Kansas City, MO; son of Kurt and Marilyn Metzl (physicians). Education: Graduated from Brown University (magna cum laude); Oxford University, Ph.D.; Harvard Law School, J.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—4734 Oak St. No.1215, Kansas City, MO 64112.

CAREER:

Civil servant and author. U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia, human rights officer, 1991-93; U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, Homeland Security Programs, senior fellow and coordinator; Georgetown University Law Center, Washington, DC, adjunct professor of law. Served in numerous government or diplomatic positions, including deputy staff director and senior counselor for U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, senior coordinator for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs at U.S. Department of State, and director for Multilateral and Humanitarian Affairs for U.S. National Security Council.

MEMBER:

Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

White House fellowship, 1997.

WRITINGS:

(Author of text) A Dream for Peace: Human Rights Drawings by Cambodian Children, designed by Jan Arnesen, Gladys Nginga, and Theng Chhorvirith, UN Transitional Authority (Phnom Penh, Cambodia), 1993.

(Editor) Western Responses to Human Rights Abuses in Cambodia, 1975-80, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1996.

The Depths of the Sea (novel), St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2004.

Also contributor to journals, including American Journal of International Law, Foreign Affairs, and Daedalus.

SIDELIGHTS:

Jamie Metzl drew on his long-time career in Washington, D.C., politics, and particularly his experience as a human-rights officer for the U.N. Transitional Authority in Cambodia, to write his first spy novel, The Depths of the Sea. Before his fiction debut, however, Metzl contributed the text to A Dream for Peace: Human Rights Drawings by Cambodian Children, which features drawings by Cambodian school children on the theme "What human rights means to me." In Western Responses to Human Rights Abuses in Cambodia, 1975-80, Metzl addresses international human rights issues concerning Cambodia and its refugee camps.

In The Depths of the Sea, Metzl uses his intimate knowledge of Cambodia and its sociopolitical issues to tell the story of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer Morgan O'Reilly, who in the early 1970s takes the street children of Phnom Penh and turns them into undercover spies. One of his young proteges, Sophal, eventually moves to the United States to become a full-fledged CIA agent. When Sophal goes missing on the Thai-Cambodian border many years later, the bored and desk-bound O'Reilly is put into action to search for her. O'Reilly's CIA boss, Tom Dillon, has more than just Sophal's rescue on his agenda as he sends O'Reilly back into the field. A Kirkus Reviews contributor praised the book as "a promising start." David Pitt, writing in Booklist, said the novel was "vibrant, well-paced," and noted, "The author's expertise … gives the novel an air of realism that few similarly themed thrillers can match." A Publishers Weekly contributor commented that "Metzl has created a thrilling, authentically atmospheric tale" and added that The Depths of the Sea is "a luminous debut."