The Nature of Things

As  John le Carré  nears his 90th birthday (he was born in 1931), it is good to note that he really has not lost a step when it comes to constructing a convoluted brain-teaser of a spy thriller. His skills are on full display in his latest book, Agent Running in the Field . Even the title of the book is open to interpretation. Does it refer to a "spy handler" who manages agents in the field? Or does it refer to an agent who is running to escape? In the end, it could be both or either. This is  le Carré's first book set in the Trump/Boris Johnson/Brexit era and one of the characters, Ed, expounds what I would guess is the author's jaundiced view of that entire debacle. But I am getting ahead of myself. The story begins with a spy handler named Nat being pulled from that job and brought back to London. Nat is a twenty-five-year veteran of MI6 and he loved his job in the field. He is not happy about being pulled from it and suspects that he is about to be given his walki...

As a fan of John le  Carré's George Smiley books of many years ago, I was intrigued to read in reviews of his latest book that he was getting the old gang together one last time. How could I possibly resist? Answer: I couldn't, so I immediately let this book jump the queue on my TBR list. The book is relatively short, at around 300 pages, and is a quick read for that reason and simply because le  Carré's prose flows so smoothly. Potential readers should be aware though that, in order to enjoy this book, one really does need familiarity with those earlier Smiley books, because the action in this one harkens back to those days when the Cold War was at its coldest and a physical wall was being built through Berlin to shut off contact with the West. The time is the present and the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, is in an uproar over the possibility of being sued by three children of people who died because of their work with the Circus. In order to defend...

Our Kind of Traitor is typical John le Carre' - intricately plotted, provocative, intelligently written and seemingly springing right off the pages of today's newspapers. In the aftermath of the Lehman Brothers collapse and the onset of world economic crisis, we find a young English couple, Perry and Gail, having a vacation in Antigua. There they meet a Russian named Dima, who, it appears, is linked to the Russian mafia and who may be seeking a way to slip away from their clutches. He engages Perry to play a game of tennis, a game that is watched by Dima's extended family and bodyguards. After the game, he begins to test Perry to see whether he might be his ticket "out". He wants to know whether Perry is a spy or has any connections to the vaunted British Secret Service. No, and no. Perry, the academic, is not a spy and has no connections but he is intrigued by Dima and upon returning to England, he manages to contact the Secret Service and tell them about him. D...