Not his best, but a great read nonetheless. Sort of fizzles out, with a disappointing denouement, but the style is tight and I couldn't put it down. ( )

This is Le Carré at his usual trick of building a thriller out of the low-key, banal and bureaucratic. Tinker, Tailor... was all about files; this one focusses on a conference interpreter. (Didn't Nicholas Freeling write a thriller about an interpreter a long time ago?) Unfortunately, Salvo's character is a bit unconvincing, while the plot is too implausible for words. There is no sensible reason for the organisers of the conspiracy to use the same interpreter for translating the delegates' bugged conversations and at the conference table. Especially an interpreter with no previous experience of clandestine work, who may well be known to the delegates (how many specialists in East Congolese languages can there be in London?). Oh, and he has a sentimental affection for the region the conspirators are plotting to exploit, and his wife is a newspaper reporter. The obvious man for the job!
Anyway, why have an interpreter at the conference table, interacting with the delegates, at all? In real life they sit anonymously in little glass boxes and talk into microphones.
Le Carré can do better than this, and you wouldn't have thought that he has any need to churn out pot-boilers at this stage in his career. ( )

Engaging and very well written. ( )

Pleasant book on Africa but far from Le Carré at his best...
Not everything is gone with cold war as The constance gardener proved it, but Smiley's books are surely more compelling than this one! ( )

A well-told thriller. The story of interpreter Bruno Salvador and his bid to be David to the British government's Goliath as they meddle in African affairs. Smooth reading. ( )