Although generally well written, I struggled to understand why any of the characters cared about each other or why I should care about them. The back of the book talks about the three characters who form relationships. I have trouble understanding why any of them cared about each other. That combined with the fact that I never understood why anyone would be concerned about a potential danger left me underwhelmed.

Solid 3.5--suitably morose and twisty, with a few killer existential lines, and a lot of earned "fuck the Americans" as you'd expect from Le Carre.

Mr. le Carre is one of my favorites, with the venerable George Smiley as one of my favorite characters. Recently, his novels have shifted from the ambiguity of life typified by his world of espionage and people who morph as the situation calls, with right and wrong, good and bad being a value judgment rather than a hard stop, to sermonizing, pointing out that there is indeed real evil in the world and le Carre knows exactly who represents it. It's not my plan to debate that. There is evidence that he's correct. My only problem is that I'm now forced to take the author's viewpoint to the exclusion of any other perspective. Is le Carre still a great writer? Yes. Is this novel with its depiction of people forced to make decisions at the hands of powers beyond anyone's ability to resist worth reading. Definitely. Will I continue to read his novels? Yes. But I will have a very large salt cellar next to me when I do.

About a decade ago, I saw the movie adaptation of this book and loved it. It was a sleek, cynical look at spying in the war on terror with a cutthroat ending.

I didn't know it was a book, let alone one by the legendary John le Carré, until I found it at my local library. Having never read Le Carré yet and having loved the movie, I took the plunge.

I'm glad I did. It's a remarkably taut, wry and darkly comic book that delivers the goods. Le Carré is very good at making you feel in the head of his characters and their inner monologues are just the sort of thing you'd expect them to say. It's also black-as-night cynical and ultimately tragic because the most horrific things that happen to the book's characters often happen in the margins, with a bureaucratic shrug being the most attention they get.

Great book to get started with Le Carré and hoping to read more of his stuff soon.