A Most Wanted Man

by John le Carré

Book Overview

From the "literary master for a generation" (The London Observer) comes a fiercely com- pelling and current novel set in Hamburg that plays to all of le Carr 's trademark strengths-- Germany, rival... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670069124
• ISBN13: 9780670069125
• Release Date: September 2008
• Publisher: Viking
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 1.26 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Written in Glorious 3D

The question as to if this book is a page-turner or not to my mind is irrelevant because it is a sheer joy to pick up this le Carre novel and delight in his exquisite writing style. His story and characters are so credible, as he excels in the description of those small details of expression, of movement and of emotions that give color to our lives. One feels as if this novel had been written in glorious 3D and as a bonus you don't need special glasses to be right up there in the action. The writing radiates a rare intelligence and sophistication where the scenes and the characters are all so believable that you could reach out, touch them and partake in them. In fact, and if anything, they are a little too real in the politically correct and threatening world we have created for ourselves.

Strongest LeCarre book

The first John LeCarre that Ive read was Our Game. His characters in that book get tremblingly jealous, nauseatingly vengeful, furiously indignant. The protagonist himself is languishing on moral dilemmas. I have read Constant Gardener, Tailor of Panama, Absolute Friends since, Our Game remains his strongest for me... until this one. Some people, as with Absolute Friends and Constant Gardener, would probably dislike the book for its ending. Lecarre could have wrapped it up differently by revising just the last 20 page, and the book will sell a couple of hundred thousands more, but LeCarre chooses the most plausible ending that he thinks happen today (same case for his the books I mentioned above). It's his own little way to fan the ember of activism and the reader's awareness/alertness on what's currently happening and the actual issues in global politics. Even if you don't like spycraft stories and the political underpinnings in the book, you will still enjoy the very human characters. They are brilliantly framed, most probably rigorously pre-studied. And the drama is taut. This book is guaranteed worth your while. To us who work 8am to 8pm, we cant really hope to finish a novel anymore in one week. Much less, expect to start it. But how LeCarre weaves real breathing people will take you to finish a book once you started. The tension is always there even without the gunfights and explosions. Last 75 pages especially are fire-y, frenzy.

No Softball Spy Games Here

Moral and financial complexities permeate this novel which carries with it a biting commentary on western foreign policy and particularly that of America. A follow the money journey through an archipelago of global banks both large and small who are subtly connected to vaguely named charitable organizations. Here too is the classic spy story, but it carries the more raw and violent edge of the post 9/11 era. One of the book's main characters; the steely, ruthless and indefatigable German spy chief Gunther Bachman states "we are not policemen, we are spies. We do not arrest our targets. We develop them and redirect them at bigger targets. When we identify a network, we watch it, we listen to it, we penetrate it and by degrees we control it. Arrests are of negative value." And in the shadows there is the suggestion that we "shake-down" and torture too and this has a decidedly more sinister and edgy feel than the interrogation of Bill Hayden of yesteryear. The reader gains a comprehension of the chronic paranoia which spawns the evil shadows in the closet sense of things (or not) which, in turn generates the motivation behind the actions of three western spy agencies in this story. This becomes a study in moral complexity, fear and policy. Do these agencies and their people become a monster in pursuit of one? If a person is 95% good and 5% bad does that make them all bad? Mostly good? Bachman describes what 5% "bad" means in the real world when the author paraphrases his thought by saying that the public is protected from having to grapple with the dilemma which he concludes is the "slaughterhouse blood washing over your toe caps, and the hundred percent dead scattered in five percent bits over a square kilometer of the town square (presumably from a suicide bomber)." 5% bad might lead to 100% dead being the inference. And so the psychology becomes amplified and finds itself to action and policy. So accustomed to their paranoia are they that truth becomes obscured. Maddening. Bachman wrestles with this dilemma; but the classic LeCarre character Mr. Tommy Brue and the German civil rights lawyer who defends the protagonist do even more so. Where does this leave us? Finally the reader is clear that the book's protagonist, Issa, is (or might be) innocent but nonetheless has been sucked into the maelstrom of American lead extraordinary rendition and spying and this leaves the reader hanging. What is to become of Issa? We realize that the story might continue in some Egyptian or Syrian torture chamber and that there are many stories just like it and that justice has very well been compromised and perverted OR has it? This is as close to the "old LeCarre" as I've seen among his most recent novels. It harkens back to the moral complexity and haunting questions of the Karla trilogy, or The Spy Who Came in From the Cold or The Night Manager. It's very good, but it just squeaks into 5 star territory well behind of the aforemen

"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."

George Orwell. With the possible exception of one young German lawyer there are no revolutionary acts in John Le Carre's "A Most Wanted Man". Rather, we have high-level functionaries from German, British, and US intelligence agencies for whom deceit is the norm and truth plays, at best, a secondary role in acting in what is or may be in each country's national interest. In tone and substance this is not much different from Le Carre's Cold War fiction. The trick is to see whether the same cynical realism plays as well in today's `war on terror'. Le Carre's transition from the Cold War to the brave new world post-9/11 is excellent. The result is a book that is dark, cynical, and almost as rewarding as the best of Le Carre's earlier fiction. The most wanted man in question is Issa. Issa is the product of the rape of a Chechnyan woman by a Red Army Colonel stationed in Chechnya. Raised by his father in Russia, Issa flees to the west after his father dies. Issa finds his way to Hamburg and despite his famished look it appears that Issa has connection to money and influence. He is also, apparently, a Muslim and because of his Chechnyan heritage he is identified by Russian intelligence agencies as a suspected terrorist. German, US, and British intelligence agencies based in Hamburg quickly identify him as a person of interest. The other main protagonists are Annabel Richter and Tommy Brue. Richter is a newly qualified attorney who has foregone work in private practice to work for a German civil rights organization created to assist immigrants and refugees in normalizing their status in Germany. Brue is a private banker whose bank is the depository of the significant funds Issa may lay claim to. Le Carre does a wonderful job portraying Issa, Richter, and Brue. Issa is a total cipher. He has a naïve innocence about him (think of Chance from Jerzy Kosinki's Being There) that takes the reader in one direction in assessing his motives and the real reason for his presence in Germany. Yet there are enough anomalies and discrepancies in his story and in his remarks to Richter and Brue that make you go, "hold on a moment, there's more here than meets the eye." Richter is something of a naif, her idealism tends to obscure her ability to cast a truly critical eye over the gaps in Issa's story. Tennyson once wrote: "That a lie which is half a truth is ever the blackest of lies; That a lie which is all a lie may be met and fought with outright; But a lie which is part a truth is a harder matter to fight." Le Carre writes with exquisite precision and insight about a world in which truth is not a matter worth fighting for. Highly recommended. L. Fleisig