John le Carré: A Delicate Truth (2013)

Edition: Viking, 2013
Review number: 1498

It's a while since I last read a John le Carré novel, and I picked this up in the local library a little reluctantly, because I felt that his world was often too downbeat for me to enjoy reading his work as much as I felt I should - very well written, provocative, but depressing.

A Delicate Truth is the story of the aftermath of a secret and rather shady operation, a collaboration between British military and a US security firm, organised outside normal security services procedures by an ambitious government minister. The operation is described in the first section of the novel, and the fallout from it returns to haunt some of those involved through the rest of the book. The main character is Toby Bell, who was the minister's private secretary at the time of the mission and was excluded in a manner which made him suspicious. The focus is on Bell's attempt to understand what has happened and to act in accordance with his conscience, not in the way which sustains the cover up.

The ideas of the novel are clearly inspired by the Wikileaks saga and the cases of Bradley (now Chelsea) Manning and Edward Snowden. Several of le Carré's earlier novels, especially The Constant Gardener, The Mission Song, and A Most Wanted Man have done the same thing, but this is the first time where a UK setting has been used to give the novel more immediacy to what I would assume is the author's main audience, his compatriots.

Although the operation is not an official one, and the background is post-Cold War, I found A Delicate Truth reminiscent of le Carré's Smiley novels as a reading experience, more than it is of the recent works already mentioned. This is not the only reason; le Carré's spy fiction has often had matters of conscience and honour at its heart, and these themes play a large part here too. I did feel that this resemblance does make it clear that A Delicate Truth is overshadowed by the Smiley novels - not surprisingly: there is a reason why they are classics of the spy thriller genre.

A thoughtful novel, raising concerns about the actions taken against whistleblowers by those in authority. Though readable, it is a step down from le Carré at his peak. My rating: 7/10.

John le Carré: Our Kind of Traitor (2010)

Since 2000, John le Carré's novels have been rather downbeat, even by the standards of a writer not known for cheerfulness (The Constant Gardener, Absolute Friends, The Mission Song, and A Most Wanted Man). Our Kind of Traitor is much more of a pleasant read, with a rather arch tone shared with some of his earlier novels, The Russia House and The Tailor of Panama in particular coming to mind. The former also shares with this novel a plot in which innocent people are used as intermediaries in secret negotiations. Thus, the story is simple: Russian money launderer Dima wishes to give up the secrets he holds after the betrayal and murder of one of his closest friends by a Russian Mafia boss for whom they both worked, and chooses the British Secret Service as the recipient (asking for a place for his daughter at Roedean school in return).

Dima's chosen instrument for making contact with the British is Oxford English fellow Perry, who is holidaying on Antigua with his girlfriend Gina at the same time as the Russian, with whom he also shares an interest in tennis, which provides a convenient reason to meet up and become friendly. Most of the first part of the novel is taken up by Perry and Gina's debriefing, describing the initial tennis match and the introduction of Dima's proposal to the two of them. Both the description of these sessions and the questioning itself are arch in tone, occasionally to the point of becoming irritating rather than light and amusing. It sometimes reads as though Le Carré is parodying his earlier writing in this vein (in the novels mentioned above).

Myself, I feel that John le Carré peaked a long time ago.  His books from the last decade are still worth reading, but something of the spark has gone out of them, even though he still has something to say, finding new topics after the end of the Cold War. The change of tone makes Our Kind of Traitor more fun to read than, say, The Mission Song, but perhaps too its subject matter is less significant than Le Carré's righteous anger at the way that the poorer nations of the world continue to be exploited by the richer. For the best Le Carré experience, go back to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. My rating: 6/10.

Edition: Viking, 2010
Review number: 1450

John le Carré: A Most Wanted Man (2008)

Hodder & Stoughton, 2008

Issa is, or claims to be, many contradictory people. A beggar sleeping on the Hamburg streets with thousands of euros in the purse around his neck. A Chechen imprisoned and tortured by the Russians, but with a KGB officer father. A devout Muslim, who doesn't seem to know the difference between Sunni and Shi'ite, or how to show proper reverence to a copy of the Koran. Son of an important (if shady) customer of a small bank in Hamburg to make contact with the current head of Brue Frères, but not to claim the fortune which is his inheritance. An illegal immigrant, wanted by the Swedish police, who makes himself conspicuous to the German intelligence services on arrival in the country rather than lying low, with the result that he is immediately suspected of being a terrorist.

There are two people on his side. Annabel Richter, a young radical lawyer (in the pre-9/11 sense of "radical"), is assigned to Issa's case by Sanctuary, the refugee charity she works for. And Tommy Brue, respectable proprietor of the family bank. Neither entirely trusts Issa, but both feel the need to help him as much as they can.

Le Carré's last three novels (The Constant Gardener, The Mission Song, and this) share a common theme. They all seek to expose something of his view of the institutional immorality of the West's dealings with the rest of the world. Whether or not you agree with him (and to what extent), he makes what he has to say interesting and gripping. And it is sincere: this is a novel byt someone very angry. What angers him here is the American attitude to terrorist suspects. As one of the characters says at the end, Le Carré's point is that "American justice", which the US makes so much of, has become "extraordinary rendition".

I personally would still hope that not every institution is as morally bankrupt as Le Carré portrays them to be. But surely no one can deny that there is something in Le Carré's position, and that the author's anger is shared by many people from outside the privileged Western nations.

Themes which go back further in Le Carré's work are seen here, too. The troubled relationships between father an son, which are important in many of his novels, are seen here in both Brue and Issa's feelings for their dead parents. Issa also exemplifies the author's interest in the untrustworthiness of people's public personas. The tone of world weariness in the prose is common to many, perhaps all, of his novels.

While A Most Wanted Man was enjoyable on its own, I do find that with Le Carré a little goes a long way. If I read several of his novels in quick succession, the depressing tone which is so much a trademark becomes tiring. So I would tend to rate his novels higher when I read them sporadically. My rating: 7/10.

John le Carré: The Mission Song (2006)

Published: Hodder, 2007

Since Midnight's Children, the legacy of colonial rule has been a popular choice of theme for literary authors, with at least one novel of this type appearing in most year's Booker Prize short list (and frequently proving less than enjoyable in my annual reading of the books on that list). The Mission Song is le Carré's second novel on this theme, after the interesting The Constant Gardener.

The Mission Song is about the eastern edge of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, along the border with Uganda and Rwanda. Congo is, to most Westerners, still Conrad's Heart of Darkness: its colonial and post colonial history among the most troubled on the African continent (see the Wikipedia article on the country). In the east, the Rwandan genocide filled the country with refugees and ethnic tension (there were ethnic Tutsi living on the Congolese side of the border before, during, and after the killing). Remote from Congo's capital Kinshasa, the region seems rife for independence; at least, that is the view of the power brokers who are the subjects of The Mission Song.

The narrator, Bruno Salvador, is (by his own reckoning) a top class interpreter who also happens to come from the region, though his background, as the child of an Irish Catholic priest and a local woman makes him an outsider both in Africa and in London where he now lives. This doesn't prevent him being recruited as a proud member of the British Secret Service - he obviously feels that he is accepted by the establishment and working for the good guys.

It is in this role that he is asked to attend a secret meeting between some of the important regional leaders from the eastern Congo. Bruno, under another name, works as their interpreter, but the meeting's participants are unaware of the full range of languages he speaks, and the organisers also use him to provide fuller translations, including transcripts from bugs planted around the hotel. At the start, he recognises some of the participants and admires the principles they adhere to; but this level of access leads to disillusionment as he is privy to the deals, bribes, and even torture which are used to get final agreement to go ahead with an attempted coup in the region.

It is usual in this kind of novel to dwell on the atmosphere of the country in which it is set (done marvellously in, say, The God of Small Things), but almost the entire narrative of The Mission Song takes place in an anonymous European hotel: this book is about the impotency of those who live in Africa, when the decisions which effect their lives are made in such places. The reader never gets to know the identities of the conference sponsors. Only the early reminiscences of Bruno's childhood are set in the Congo.

While slow moving, The Mission Song grips through the depiction of Salvador, whose name is clearly ironic: he is a passive observer of events, not an actor, and certainly not a saviour. He delights in his job, especially the honour of being asked to join the Secret Service, and le Carré's depiction of his naive enjoyment is entertaining and well done, as is the despair alternating with optimism that is the result of his discovery that men he had previously admired were as venal and self serving as any behind their public image.

There is perhaps not much here for fans of George Smiley, but The Mission Song is an indication of the literary quality of le Carré's work: much better and more thought provoking than most of those Booker shortlisted post-colonial novels.

John le Carré: Single and Single (1999)

Edition: Coronet, 2000
Review number: 1158

Oliver Single begins a promising career in the legal department of his father's banking company, only to gradually realise that its fortunes rest on the laundering of money for organised crime. As the company's biggest partnership, with "entrepeneurs" in the disintegrating Soviet Union, takes shape, Oliver makes the fateful decision to betray his father to the authorities. This part of the story is told in flashback; the main plot of Single and Single is about what happens when Oliver's father tracks him down in his new identity supplied by the security services following the murder of one of the bank's employees by the Russians.

Single and Single is not the only le Carré novel to revolve around a complex father-son relationship; in this respect, as in tone and structure, it is reminiscent of The Secret Pilgrim. The moral ambiguity of the characters is also, of course, a trademark of le Carré, and, as in The Secret Pilgrim the imperfections of both father and son fuel not just their relationship but the whole novel. However, Single and Single is prevented from being among the better le Carré novels because its long flashback is not really very well executed; compared to the main plot, it is dull and unconvincing. The Constant Gardener is the best of le Carré's latest phase, leaving this as worth reading for fans.

John le Carré: The Constant Gardener

Edition: Coronet, 2001
Review number: 1121

One of the major issues that faces our generation, one which receives relatively little publicity and which seems quite intractable, is how large corporations can be controlled by public opinion, particularly their operations in Third World countries desperate for money. Stockholders continue to put short term profits ahead of other concerns - such as humanitarian and environmental ones - and are frequently able to exert considerable pressure even on the American government to be allowed to do whatever they want. (The US attitude to the recent environment conference in Johannesburg is a good example, and this year's accounting scandals show that blatant and illegal lying to maintain share prices has been an accepted part of some corporate culture.)

The Constant Gardener is set mainly amoung the diplomatic community in Kenya. There, the British High Commission is hit by a scandal when the wife of a junior diplomat is found with her throat cut while on a drive from a safari resort. What at first sight seems to be a violent robbery soon turns out to be something more sinister; the drive was to visit Richard Leakey, newly appointed to the Kenyan cabinet so that Arup Moi could be seen to be trying to deal with the corruption of the regime, and Tess had been gathering evidence about the wrongdoing of a Western drug company which she wanted to present to Leakey as someone who might be willing to act on the information. Orders rapidly arrive from the Foreign Office in London to drop any investigation of this side of things, but Tessa's husband Justin wants to find out just what she had discovered that was so important that the company involved would consider ordering a "hit" on her.

Le Carré's diagnosis of corruption is not just confined to Kenya, but stretches right back to Europe and North America, exposing such practises as attempts by pharmaceutical companies to take control of university researchers (via large donations) and thus the journals which contain the reports made of drug trials. In the case invented by le Carré, the problem is not that the drug is no good (it is a spectacular cure for TB), but that the proper tests have been hurried and the drug at present has potentially fatal side effects.

John le Carré is not the first writer to take up the theme of corporate sleaze; it is easy to see most cyberpunk as warnings about what might happen if nothing is done, and it is more explicitly addressed in Ben Elton's Stark, a novel which I found almost unreadable. The Constant Gardener is the most convincing and enjoyable thriller I have read on the subject, and feels like a real call to action.

John le Carré: The Secret Pilgrim (1991)

Edition: Coronet, 1991
Review number: 927

The last Smiley novel is unique in le Carré's output. It is very episodic, and in many places reads like a collection of short stories. It has a regretful, valedictory tone, but is one of the easiest of le Carré's novels to read.

The narrator is Ned, the former head of the Russia House in the novel of that name, now running a secret service training course. He invites the long retired, legendary George Smiley to talk to the group, to find that the discussion that follows sparks memories of his own past.

Like most of le Carré's spy fiction, the episodes which come to Ned's mind do not reflect much credit on the British secret service and, being arranged neatly chronologically, demonstrate his growing disillusion with the job he is doing. Even so, the tone is light, perhaps a response to Ned's retirement, the vantage point from which he is writing. It is also, presumably, from le Carré's point of view part of giving Smiley a proper send off; it is made very clear that no more is to be written about him (he even asks, at the end of the evening, not to be asked back again, so that the new generation can move on from his influence).

John le Carré: The Russia House (1989)

Edition: Coronet, 1990 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 914

Perestroika must have come as something of a shock to the writers who had been making a living from the Cold War, just as it seems to have done to Western secret services. Obviously, to some extent, the process was basically cosmetic, but at least the Russian authorities had admitted there was a problem, which is more than the British government, now one of the most secretive in the world, has ever done.

The Russia House is le Carré's first novel set in this period when the Cold War was beginning to thaw, and it is characterised by the attitude of most of the characters, who would prefer to hold on to the relative certainties of the past.

The central character, Barley Blair, runs a London publishing house which prints Russian fiction. At a party in Russia, he says something which impresses a man known as Goethe; a scientist working in the Russian missile programme, he chooses to betray to the world the chronic problems of their defence systems, and he prepares a manuscript he believes that Blair will publish to the world.

Because Blair doesn't appear at the next British Council book fair in Moscow, the manuscript goes astray and ends up in the hands of British Intelligence. They begin a major operation, recruiting a reluctant Blair to return to Russia and work with Goethe's chosen courier, with whom he falls in love.

The story is supposedly narrated by a disillusioned lawyer in the secret service, but in many places scenes are filled out with detail de Palfrey could not have known at the time and was unlikely to ever find out. Clearly his sympathy lies with Goethe and Blair, but he is unable to act. The story is not in le Carré's usual style; the feeling that something sordid is going on, which is common to most of le Carré's writing and which would seem to be particularly appropriate here, is missing. This, if deliberate, is a clever touch.

Le Carré obviously hadn't at this point quite decided how he would respond to the changes in Russia, and The Russia House is, as a result, not among his very best work. On the other hand, it is one of his most readable novels and is probably the one which fits easiest within the traditions of the thriller genre.

John le Carré: A Perfect Spy (1986)

Edition: Coronet, 1987
Review number: 895

One of le Carré's non-Smiley novels, A Perfect Spy is far more about the psychological pressures which create a secret agent than about the mechanics of spying itself. It is part of le Carré's move away from writing genre thrillers that really began with Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

Magnus Pym is quite a senior operational officer, who has been running networks of British spies in Czechoslovakia for many years. After the death of his father Rick, Pym goes missing, and it begins to look as though he has been a double agent all this time.

His father's death leads Pym to take stock of his life, and he writes its history, principally detailing his relationships with Rick Pym and Czech spy Axel. Some of this is a bit confusing, as in his memoirs Pym refers to himself in the present as "I" and in the past as "Pym". Rick is the formative influence on Pym as a person, and he is the novel's major problem as far as I am concerned. Like Shamus in The Naive and Sentimental Lover, he is meant to be charming, but comes across as obnoxious. He is a con-man, with massively grandiose schemes, alternately successful and falling through. The qualities that Magnus inherits from him are the charm and the ability to put together and carry off a successful lie, at least for a time. This, and his allegiance to himself over any patriotic sentiment makes him a perfect spy in the eyes of Axel.

Basically, if you dislike Rick, as I did, the first two thirds of the novel will be heavy going. As far as I am concerned, le Carré is unable to portray charm; it is a difficult characteristic to put across, but all his characters who are supposed to have it seem to me to be unpleasant, self-centred and unscrupulous. The novel is part of le Carré's ongoing attempt to write like Graham Greene, but he doesn't have that kind of talent.

John Le Carré: The Little Drummer Girl (1983)

Edition: Pan, 1984
Review number: 879

This novel is a departure from the spy stories which were the norm for le Carré, and a more successful one than The Naive and Sentimental Lover, because more along the lines of his usual writing. It is about a spy infiltrating an organisation, but not the KGB or the British secret service - this is a Palestinian terrorist cell intent on attacking Jewish targets in Europe. The infiltrator is a British actress, Charmian (known as Charlie), who has been picked for this extremely dangerous task by Israeli intelligence (this is the most unlikely aspect of the novel). They are portrayed just like the Palestinians, unpleasant in some ways, idealistic and admirable in others. This evenhandedness, a refusal to demonise either side, is the major strength of the novel.

Charlie is very well drawn, a believable would-be radical, ready to espouse any cause that she thinks the authorities would disapprove of. The main agents and terrorists are also convincing. The backgrounds, which include hippie communes on Mykonos, refugee camps in the Lebanon, English provincial theatres and German towns, are quite sketchy; the effort has gone into characterisation instead.

The Little Drummer Girl is, I think, the best of all le Carré's novels in which George Smiley is not a character, and is a thought provoking thriller.

John le Carre: Smiley's People (1980)

Edition: Pan, 1980 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 856

Once again, the British intelligence service known as the Circus is unable to get on without George Smiley, who is recalled a second time from retirement to sort out a problem related to Russian spymaster Karla, controller of the high ranking mole in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

The problem he is called in to sort out begins with the murder of one of the leaders of the community of Estonian refugees, at one time important parts of the Circus' network of agents, but now considered to belong to the past. What Smiley has to work out is what it is that the old man has discovered which has made the
Russians decide that suddenly he is worth killing.

Cleearly in the tradition of the detective early Smiley novels, Smiley's People is not as successful as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy or The Honourable Schoolboy. In those novels, others are entrusted with th operational legwork; here Smiley himself investigates the death in England and Germany, and leads a group in Switzerland. Given his age, he makes an unlikely operative; he was a spy in the war, and this novel if contemporary with its setting (as it seems to be) is thirty five years later.

John le Carré: The Honourable Schoolboy (1977)

Edition: Pan, 1978 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 840

The Honourable Schoolboy is a sequel to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The discovery of the Russian mole in an extremely senior position in the British intelligence operation known as the Circus has severely damaged its reputation, both in Whitehall and abroad. George Smiley, as acting head of the Circus, has the task of re-building confidence, with agents known to the Russians, and unwillingness throughout Whitehall to give him resources or share information.

The only possible source of intelligence that the Circus now possesses is analysis of the activities of the mole. By looking at his manipulation of operations, it is possible to tell something of both the holes in Soviet knowledge and what they themselves were trying to keep hidden. In the second category falls a Hong Kong bank account, into which vast amounts of Russian money have been deposited, and where previous investigations were quashed by the mole, who also destroyed many of the relevant files.

Smiley manages to find an agent whose existence does not seem to have been revealed to the Russians to send to Hong Kong to investigate, and manages to persuade Whitehall to let the Circus resume active operations. The agent is Jerry Westerby, son of a press baron (hence the Honourable of the title), and the novel is divided about half and half between Smiley's activities in London and Westerby's in Hong Kong and Indochina.

Smiley is clearly the character who holds le Carré's interest, and the London, office bound, scenes are far more interesting than the action in the East - just as in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy they are compared with the activities of Prideaux in Eastern Europe. This is despite the fact that le Carré's depiction of the corrupt world of Triads, opium, civil war and the disintegrating US presence is compelling. The reason for it is basically that Smiley is the only fully realised character, those around him being caricatures and Westerby a stereotype, not essentially any different from Prideaux.

The Honourable Schoolboy is not as good as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy; the excitement is less. Smiley on the trail of the mole is much more interesting than Smiley trying to restore the reputation of the Circus, and the novel is therefore less involving. Readable, but not le Carré at his best.

John le Carré: The Naive and Sentimental Lover (1971)

Edition: Pan, 1972 (Buy from Amazon)
Review number: 822

The Naive and Sentimental Lover is unique in le Carré's outpur. It is not a thriller, but a serious novel; its subject is an obsessive relationship. Aldo Cassidy is a self made man, a magnate in the pram accessory business. He goes to Somerset to view a country house he is thinking of purchasing, and there meets a couple, squatting. Aldo falls for them both; Shamus turns out to be a famous novelist, and Helen is extremely beautiful.

Some people think this is one of the best things le Carré has done; other that it is the worst. This is probably decided by their response to the character of Shamus. He is clearly intended to be charming, but to me he comes across as one of the most selfish and obnoxious characters in any novel. (No prizes for guessing what I think of The Naive and Sentimental Lover!) I hate embarrassing behaviour, to the extent of frequently turning off TV comedy, and Shamus is to me the epitome of loud and embarrassing. Le Carré is ambivalent about Shamus himself, and by the end of the novel, Aldo has come to hate him, but my problem is that it is difficult to see why he every thought otherwise.

I have read somewhere that The Naive and Sentimental Lover is to some extent autobiographical, though Shamus is so over the top that this is hard to believe. Some parts of it are clearly not from life; both Helen and Aldo's wife Sandra are typical of le Carré's female characters in that they are ciphers by comparison with the men.

Another way to look at this novel is to see Shamus as the reflection of the unexpressed side of Aldo's personality. This makes the novel between the repressed, successful businessman and the wild artist. This idea makes the novel much more interesting, though it hardly provides much evidence to support this interpretation. The title is one part of it; from Romantic philosophy, where Schiller divided people into the naive, who live the natural life, and the sentimental, who do not but who long to. Shamus, it is explained in the novel, is naive, while Aldo is sentimental. This basically means that Aldo's life, until he meets Helen and Shamus, is ruled by civilised convention, while Shamus is out to shock and outrage, and defy convention at every opportunity. This is not an unreasonable thing to do (and probably seems less outrageous in today's post-punk world than it did when the novel was first published), but defying normal rules for the sake of it makes Shamus extremely tiresome. The title, to return to what I was saying, implies that Aldo is both naive and sentimental, so supporting the idea that Shamus is an aspect of his own personality.

John le Carré: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974)

Edition: Hodder & Stoughton, 1974
Review number: 684

There are a huge number of spy stories with the basic theme of the investigation of the possibility of a traitor, a mole, in a secret service. After the Maclean/Philby scandals of the fifties, it was probably a subject which automatically suggested itself to writers who wrote about the various British secret organisations. It is perhaps an odd subject for a thriller, because it must involve a large amount of bookish research and less action than many writers would desire - it could never have been the sort of thing James Bond would tackle. However, it is a theme which lends itself to a more literary style of spy story, full of complications, byzantine plots and constant reassessments, and these novels provide a very different kind of pleasure to those who enjoy that sort of thing.

Of all these books, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is one of the greatest. George Smiley has been forced into retirement after a disastrous operation organised by Control, head of the Circus (as the intelligence service of le Carré's novels is known), and Smiley is implicated in the disaster as Control's right hand man, despite his innocence. When a spy labelled a defector returns from abroad with accusations that one of the top men now running the Circus is a mole, Smiley is asked to return to work, to attempt to unmask him. Whoever it is, they are closely concerned with the Circus' star Russian source, codenamed Merlin. The intelligence provided by Merlin is basically the necessary cost incurred by the Russians to enhance the reputation and potential for damage of their mole.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is cleverly written, with enough action to maintain the interest combined with the intellectual puzzle tackled by Smiley. This puzzle is similar to that of a murder mystery, and the first stories featuring Smiley were in fact crime novels in which he was the detective. Le Carré allows himself the space to introduce a cast of contrasting characters, who are three dimensional though they are not allowed to develop. The novel has a believable background, and is a touch less depressing than some of the really downbeat novels which le Carré had written just a few years earlier. As well as being a masterpiece of the spy genre, it is probably also le Carré's best novel.

John le Carré: A Small Town in Germany (1968)

Edition: Pan, 1970
Review number: 501

Continuing the bleak atmosphere of his earlier novels, John le Carré produced A Small Town in Germany, which looks forward from the political, social and economic world of the late sixties in as pessimistic a manner as possible. (There are few clues for a reader today not familiar with early seventies European politics to mark this novel out as set in the future; it is only the publication date which places it before such events as the three day week.)

Set in Bonn (the small town of the title) at a time when neo-Naxis are agitating against the English while the UK is canvassing for West German support for their application for EEC membership, the novel focuses on the search for an absconding defector from the British Embassy. Alan Turner, sent out from Whitehall to investigate, almost delights in upsetting people, uncovering unpleasant secrets and generally making himself unwelcome; yet in this atmosphere of deceit where face is everything, he has little alternative if his investigation is to get anywhere.

The general tone of the novel is one of extreme disillusionment, as exemplified by one character's declaration that he believes in hypocrisy, as the closest anyone can get to virtue these days.

John le Carré: Our Game (1995)

Edition: Hodder & Stoughton, 1995
Review number: 265

Le Carré, like Deighton, has built his entire writing career on an obsession with deception and treachery, exploring its nuances through the shadowy world of espionage. In Our Game, there are two betrayals central to the plot. The large one, the treatment of the North Caucasus by the Soviet Union and then by the Russian state forms much of the background. Their policy in this region was not so much to "divide and conquer" but to foster existing divisions and enmities to maintain control: Osset against Chechen, Ingush betraying Osset, Osset massacring Ingush (with the connivance of the Russian military). The resulting conflicts and terrorism were largely ignored in the West, even during the Cold War, except when Western citizens became involved, as happened when journalists and businessmen were kidnapped by Chechen rebels.

A Somerset vineyard and Bath University may seem far from this background. Friends since school, Tim Cranmer and Lawrence Pettifer share a secret: they are retired spies. Pettifer had been a double agent, passing on false intelligence to the Russians while pretending to be head of a network of agents with the cover of a left-wing academic career; Cranmer was his British contact, who had originally recruited him for this task. Pettifer's Russian controller, Checheyev, was in fact an Ingush, one of the few allowed to hold important overseas posts under the Soviet regime. Under his influence, Pettifer became fired up by the injustices committed against the Ingush, and laundered money stolen by Checheyev from his hated Russian masters - thirty seven million pounds over a period of years.

Now that all these people have retired with the end of the Cold War, Pettifer devotes his time to campaigning on behalf of various lost causes (as a cover for maintaining contact with Checheyev) in between his academic commitments in Bath. Cranmer grows grapes on his inherited manor. Bet then Pettifer goes missing with Cranmer's mistress, an apparent betrayal which masks what he is really up to.

So Pettifer betrays his friend, and both of his employers, in the pursuit of a dream made unattainable by the bigger betrayal of the Ingush by their rulers and those they seek as allies.

The major character, the narrator Cranmer, dominates the book with his obsession with Pettifer (several hints being given of thwarted homosexual passion). His surroundings, full of people and institutions he cannot trust, are vividly portrayed, and he himself is a convincing personality. The main place this novel falls down is when the action reaches the Caucasus. This, as described in the book, could be any one of a number of mountainous, war-torn regions: Kossova, Afghanistan, anywhere where a Kalashnikov is a standard item of clothing.

John le Carré: The Looking Glass War (1965)

Edition: Pan, 1975
Review number: 118

The Looking Glass War, classic John le Carré, is a damning indictment of an amateur attitude in a professional world. It is about a small intelligence agency, a left-over from the war that by the late sixties had been over for more than twenty years, which is virtually defunct but valued for its archives. A rumour of odd troop movements in East Germany prompts it to an overflight by a pilot of a commercial aircraft to take photographs while pretending to go off course. The man from the agency trying to collect the film he has taken is killed, apparently from a hit and run accident, though the film has been taken from the body.

His death prompts Leclerc, in charge of the agency since the war, to consider running an agent for the first time in twenty years. This agent is prepared and equipped in the fashion appropriate in 1945; no one has any idea that things have changed. The equipment he is given includes a drastically obsolete radio transmitter. The agent is a bitter loner, himself left over from the war when he was betrayed to the Germans in its last days. The whole proceedings are watched by the naive Avery, new since the war; he is the centre of the book. His admiration for Leclerc and what he acheived during the war tuens to horror as he realises that the agent is being sent to his death. In their enthusiasm for a return to the operational days of the war, none of the others even begin to see this. The only person who does is Smiley, observing what is going on (from a distance) for the Circus; but Control will not let him interfere in what is bound to be a disastrous mission and which will probably bring an end to an agency which is (however ineffectually) in competition with the Circus.

This is one of le Carré's greatest novels, the air of impending doom so well done that it is a struggle to read. It is a book not just about cynicism and disillusionment but also about the dangers of misplaced enthusiasm and stupidity.

The title is a reference to the distance between the dreams of the spymasters and the reality of the sixties cold war by relating it to the adventures of Alice (Through the Looking Glass).

John le Carré: The Tailor of Panama (1996)

Edition: Coronet
Review number: 87

As the acknowledgements at the end of The Tailor of Panama, this book owes a large debt to Grahame Greene's Our Man in Havana. Le Carre says that ever since he read that book, he's been fascinated with the idea of the fabrication of intelligence information, which is the central theme of both novels.

Harry Pendel is the tailor of the title; he runs an exclusive gentleman's tailor in Panama City. His past is not the past that people think; the tale he tells of his apprenticeship to his partner Braithwaite in Savile Row, his immense gratitude to one who saved him from being led into a life of crime in the East End by his wicked Uncle Benny, are all fabrications.

Into the life he has built up for himself, which is seriously endangered by a rash investment in a rice farm, comes British diplomat Andrew Osnard. Osnard is actually a spy sent out to gain intelligence about the future of the Panama Canal after its return to Panama from US control on December 31, 1999. He knows the truth about Harry's past - the fact that Braithwaite never existed, the fact that far from being saved from his Uncle Benny, Harry took the blame for a crime he committed and went to prison.

The attraction of Pendel for Osnard is that a tailor has some sort of confidential relationship with his clients, and Pendel & Braithwaite's client list includes most of the rich and powerful men in Panama. Harry promises important intelligence, unwilling to admit that he doesn't have the influence he is expected to have. In the end, his inability to admit his own unimportance leads him to fabricate intelligence, which Osnard then further manipulates for his own ends - he aims to defraud British intelligence by inflating his costs, and makes the made-up intelligence fit in with the things that are not known in London using the convenient list of intelligence items that London would like to know.

As far as the two of them are concerned, everything works out fine until Harry is asked to recruit other people as spies; combining a list of fictional people with some of his friends causes Harry to lose control of what he is doing.

There are not really likeable characters in this book; everyone is deeply flawed. I always find South American settings difficult to empathise with. Aside from that, The Tailor of Panama is well-written, and demonstrates le Carre's flexibility as an author of spy stories (unlike Len Deighton, who seems to be having a great deal of difficulty putting the Cold War behind him).