Synopses & Reviews
“One of our great writers of moral ambiguity, a tireless explorer of that darkly contradictory no-man’s land.” —Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times Nearly five decades ago, John le Carré became an international sensation with the publication of his third novel, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. His last novel, Our Kind of Traitor, won unanimous critical acclaim and hit the New York Times bestseller list just as the Oscar-nominated film version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy introduced a new generation to his chillingly amoral universe.
A Delicate Truth opens in 2008. A counter-terrorist operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted on the British crown colony of Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, a private defense contractor who is also his bosom friend, and a shady American CIA operative of the evangelical far-right. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister’s personal private secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it.
Cornwall, UK, 2011. A disgraced Special Forces Soldier delivers a message from the dead. Was Operation Wildlife the success it was cracked up to be—or a human tragedy that was ruthlessly covered up? Summoned by Sir Christopher (“Kit”) Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely observed by Kit’s beautiful daughter, Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and duty to his Service. If the only thing necessary to the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, how can he keep silent?
Review
“Le Carré further establishes himself as a master of a new, shockingly realistic kind of noir.”—
BooklistReview
“At the moment a new generation is stumbling upon his work, le Carré is still writing at something close to the top of his game…. [
A Delicate Truth] is an elegant yet embittered indictment of extraordinary rendition, American right-wing evangelical excess and the corporatization of warfare. It has a gently flickering love story and jangling ending. And le Carré has not lost his ability to sketch, in a line or two, an entire character.”—Dwight Garner,
The New York Times Magazine “The narrative dominoes fall with masterly precision....As ever, le Carrés prose is fluid, carrying the reader toward an inevitable yet nail-biting climax.”—Olen Steinhauer, The New York Times Book Review
“A ripping, fun yarn.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Loyalty to the crown is tested; consciences are checked; and nothing is more terrifying than, as this novels protagonist puts it, ‘a solitary decider asking himself how on earth he talked himself into this mess.”—The Daily Beast
“A careers worth of literary skill and international analysis…..No other writer has chartered…the public and secret history of his times.”—The Guardian (UK)
“Remarkable….[A Delicate Truth] displays the mastery of the early and the passion of late Le Carré.”—Robert McCrum, The Observer (UK)
“Writing of such quality that…it will be read in one hundred years….[Le Carré] found his canvas in espionage, as Dickens did in other worlds. The two men deserve comparison.”—Daily Mail (UK)
“Le Carré further establishes himself as a master of a new, shockingly realistic kind of noir.”—Booklist (Starred)
“This is a guaranteed hair-raising cerebral fright, especially for anyone who enjoyed Robert Harriss The Ghost or who just knows his or her email account has been hacked.”—Library Journal (Starred)
“Le Carré focuses on the moral rot and creeping terror barely concealed by the affable old-boy blather that marks the pillars of the intelligence community.”—Kirkus Reviews (Starred)
“A great story in sterling prose.”—Publishers Weekly
Review
“One of our great writers of moral ambiguity, a tireless explorer of that darkly contradictory no-mans land…
Our Kind of Traitor brims with deftly drawn characters navigating a treacherously uncertain landscape that seems ripped from yesterdays papers and re-created with an absolutely certain hand.”—Tim Rutten,
Los Angeles Times “Part vintage John le Carré and part Alfred Hitchcock…the suspense in Our Kind of Traitor is genuine and nerve-racking.”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times
“I would suggest immortality for John le Carré, who I believe one of the most intelligent and entertaining writers working today.”—The Chicago Tribune.
Review
Praise for A DELICATE TRUTH
“At the moment a new generation is stumbling upon his work, le Carré is still writing at something close to the top of his game…. [A Delicate Truth] is an elegant yet embittered indictment of extraordinary rendition, American right-wing evangelical excess and the corporatization of warfare. It has a gently flickering love story and jangling ending. And le Carré has not lost his ability to sketch, in a line or two, an entire character.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times Magazine
“The narrative dominoes fall with masterly precision....As ever, le Carrés prose is fluid, carrying the reader toward an inevitable yet nail-biting climax.”—Olen Steinhauer, The New York Times Book Review
“Well-wrought….A sharply sketched gallery of characters.”—The Wall Street Journal
“Le Carré is fiercely modern…a confluence of styles, voices, approaches….A novel that beckons us beyond any and all expectations.”—Washington Post
“Le Carré is, as always, a lyrical writer….[C]haracter sketches with precision.”—Bloomberg
“Gorgeous writing. Its sophisticated storytelling at its very best.”—USA Today
“A ripping, fun yarn.”—Entertainment Weekly
“Loyalty to the crown is tested; consciences are checked; and nothing is more terrifying than, as this novels protagonist puts it, ‘a solitary decider asking himself how on earth he talked himself into this mess.”—The Daily Beast
“The dirty deeds are brutal and crude. And so is the cover-up.”—The Huffington Post
“Le Carré further establishes himself as a master of a new, shockingly realistic kind of noir.”—Booklist (Starred)
“This is a guaranteed hair-raising cerebral fright, especially for anyone who enjoyed Robert Harriss The Ghost or who just knows his or her email account has been hacked.”—Library Journal (Starred)
“Le Carré focuses on the moral rot and creeping terror barely concealed by the affable old-boy blather that marks the pillars of the intelligence community.”—Kirkus Reviews (Starred)
“A great story in sterling prose.”—Publishers Weekly
“The upper register of a great writers oeuvre. Knowledge is not power in the novel: John le Carré believes that truth, difficult and generous on its own, can also kill you.”—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“Characteristically clever.”—The Kansas City Star
“Witty as it is insightful….A Delicate Truth is a delightful read that unnerves as it entertains.”—The Columbus Dispatch
“A careers worth of literary skill and international analysis…..No other writer has chartered…the public and secret history of his times.”—The Guardian (UK)
“Remarkable….[A Delicate Truth] displays the mastery of the early and the passion of late Le Carré.”—Robert McCrum, The Observer (UK)
“Writing of such quality that…it will be read in one hundred years….[Le Carré] found his canvas in espionage, as Dickens did in other worlds. The two men deserve comparison.”—Daily Mail (UK)
“The tension ratchets up superbly as revelation follows on revelation….[Le Carré] is a writer of towering gifts, whose fiction appeals to a reading public both popular and serious….A talent to provoke as well as unsettle.”—The Independent (UK)
Review
"The week I opened up John le Carre's latest bitter excavation of the spiritual affinities of criminal Russians and their Western counterparts, ten Russian spies under deep cover for somewhat indeterminate purposes were rounded up in America. Meanwhile, in Siberia, the mayor of a fishing village on Lake Baikal was on trial at the behest of the FSB, the country's chief domestic security agency, charged with abuse of power for having filed suit (on public safety grounds) against a resort under construction. (The resort in question happened to be owned by the FSB.) I could practically hear le Carre chuckle offstage. The Cold War may have ended in ambiguous triumph, but the new world is not running short of sinister material for the master transnational moralist of our time. In le Carre's world, apparent coincidence is only a conspiracy yet unmasked. He is, like the British agents who pull strings throughout his latest adventure in unintended consequences, 'professionally disposed against the workings of chance.'" Todd Gitlin, The New Republic (Read the entire New Republic review)
Synopsis
From theNew York Timesbestsellingauthor ofTinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy;The Spy Who Came in from the Cold; andThe Night Manager, now a television series starring Tom Hiddleston
Chosen as a Best Book of the Year by the TheWashington Post, Publishers Weekly, andKirkus Reviews
In this exquisitely told novel, John le Carre shows us once again his acute understanding of the world we live in and where power really lies.
In the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and with Britain on the brink of economic ruin, a young English couple takes a vacation in Antigua. There they meet Dima, a Russian who styles himself the world s Number One money-launderer and who wants, among other things, a game of tennis. Back in London, the couple is subjected to an interrogation by the British Secret service who also need their help. Their acquiescence will lead them on a precarious journey through Paris to a safe house in Switzerland, helpless pawns in a game of nations that reveals the unholy alliances between the Russian mafia, the City of London, the government and the competing factions of the British Secret Service.
John le Carre s memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life, will be available from Viking in September 2016."
Synopsis
From theNew York Timesbestsellingauthor ofTinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy;Our Kind of Traitor; andThe Night Manager, now a television series starring Tom Hiddleston.John le Carre s memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life, is now available from Viking.
In this exquisitely told novel, John le Carre shows us once again his acute understanding of the world we live in and where power really lies.
In the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and with Britain on the brink of economic ruin, a young English couple takes a vacation in Antigua. There they meet Dima, a Russian who styles himself the world s Number One money-launderer and who wants, among other things, a game of tennis. Back in London, the couple is subjected to an interrogation by the British Secret service who also need their help. Their acquiescence will lead them on a precarious journey through Paris to a safe house in Switzerland, helpless pawns in a game of nations that reveals the unholy alliances between the Russian mafia, the City of London, the government and the competing factions of the British Secret Service."
Synopsis
From the New York Times bestselling author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; Our Kind of Traitor; and The Night Manager, now a television series starring Tom Hiddleston. John le Carre's new novel, A Legacy of Spies, will be available from Viking in Fall 2017.
In this exquisitely told novel, John le Carre shows us once again his acute understanding of the world we live in and where power really lies.
In the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and with Britain on the brink of economic ruin, a young English couple takes a vacation in Antigua. There they meet Dima, a Russian who styles himself the world's Number One money-launderer and who wants, among other things, a game of tennis. Back in London, the couple is subjected to an interrogation by the British Secret service who also need their help. Their acquiescence will lead them on a precarious journey through Paris to a safe house in Switzerland, helpless pawns in a game of nations that reveals the unholy alliances between the Russian mafia, the City of London, the government and the competing factions of the British Secret Service.
Synopsis
From the New York Times bestselling author of A Legacy of Spies. In this exquisitely told novel, John le Carr shows us once again his acute understanding of the world we live in and where power really lies.
In the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and with Britain on the brink of economic ruin, a young English couple takes a vacation in Antigua. There they meet Dima, a Russian who styles himself the world's Number One money-launderer and who wants, among other things, a game of tennis. Back in London, the couple is subjected to an interrogation by the British Secret service who also need their help. Their acquiescence will lead them on a precarious journey through Paris to a safe house in Switzerland, helpless pawns in a game of nations that reveals the unholy alliances between the Russian mafia, the City of London, the government and the competing factions of the British Secret Service.
Synopsis
The highly anticipated Penguin debut by John le Carre, "one of the most intelligent and entertaining writers working today" (Chicago Tribune) In this new, exquisitely told novel, John le Carré shows us once again his acute understanding of the world we live in and where power really lies. In the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and with Britain on the brink of economic ruin, a young English couple become helpless pawns in a game of nations that reveals the unholy alliances between the Russian mafia, the city of London, the government, and the competing factions of the British Secret Service.
Synopsis
The unrivaled master of spy fiction returns with a taut and suspenseful tale of dirty money and dirtier politics.
For nearly half a century, John le Carré's limitless imagination has enthralled millions of readers and moviegoers around the globe. From the cold war to the bitter fruits of colonialism to unrest in the Middle East, he has reinvented the spy novel again and again. Now, le Carré makes his Viking debut with a stunning tour-de- force that only a craftsman of his caliber could pen. As menacing and flawlessly paced as The Little Drummer Girl and as morally complex as The Constant Gardener, Our Kind of Traitor is signature le Carré.
Perry and Gail are idealistic and very much in love when they splurge on a tennis vacation at a posh beach resort in Antigua. But the charm begins to pall when a big-time Russian money launderer enlists their help to defect. In exchange for amnesty, Dima is ready to rat out his vory (Russian criminal brotherhood) compatriots and expose corruption throughout the so-called legitimate financial and political worlds. Soon, the guileless couple find themselves pawns in a deadly endgame whose outcome will be determined by the victor of the British Secret Service's ruthless internecine battles. Watch a Video
Synopsis
“One of our great writers of moral ambiguity, a tireless explorer of that darkly contradictory no-man’s land.” —Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times Nearly five decades ago, John le Carré became an international sensation with the publication of his third novel, The Spy Who Came In from the Cold. His last novel, Our Kind of Traitor, won unanimous critical acclaim and hit the New York Times bestseller list just as the Oscar-nominated film version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy introduced a new generation to his chillingly amoral universe.
A Delicate Truth opens in 2008. A counter-terrorist operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted on the British crown colony of Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, a private defense contractor who is also his bosom friend, and a shady American CIA operative of the evangelical far-right. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister’s personal private secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it.
Cornwall, UK, 2011. A disgraced Special Forces Soldier delivers a message from the dead. Was Operation Wildlife the success it was cracked up to be—or a human tragedy that was ruthlessly covered up? Summoned by Sir Christopher (“Kit”) Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely observed by Kit’s beautiful daughter, Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and duty to his Service. If the only thing necessary to the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing, how can he keep silent?
Synopsis
Chosen as a Best Book of the Year by the The Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews
In this exquisitely told novel, John le Carré shows us once again his acute understanding of the world we live in and where power really lies.
In the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and with Britain on the brink of economic ruin, a young English couple takes a vacation in Antigua. There they meet Dima, a Russian who styles himself the worlds Number One money-launderer and who wants, among other things, a game of tennis. Back in London, the couple is subjected to an interrogation by the British Secret service who also need their help. Their acquiescence will lead them on a precarious journey through Paris to a safe house in Switzerland, helpless pawns in a game of nations that reveals the unholy alliances between the Russian mafia, the City of London, the government and the competing factions of the British Secret Service.
Synopsis
A counter-terrorist operation, codenamed
Wildlife, is being mounted on the British crown colony of Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, a private defense contractor who is also his bosom friend, and a shady American CIA operative of the evangelical far-right. So delicate is the operation that even the Ministers personal private secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it.
Three years later, a disgraced Special Forces Soldier delivers a message from the dead. Was Operation Wildlife the success it was cracked up to beor a human tragedy that was ruthlessly covered up? Summoned by Sir Christopher (Kit”) Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely observed by Kits daughter, Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and duty to his Service. If the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, how can he keep silent?
About the Author
John le Carr��� was born in 1931 and attended the universities of Bern and Oxford. He taught at Eton and served briefly in British Intelligence during the Cold War. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a world wide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. His recent novels include The Constant Gardener, Absolute Friends, The Mission Song, A Most Wanted Man, and Our Kind of Traitor. He divides his time between London and Cornwall.