A very interesting read.
This one was very slowly paced at times, but there were just as many moments where I simply couldn't put the book down. The spy chase is wound in and around an introspective look by the main character at himself and how he reached this point in his career, chased by both governments that he had been working with. Le Carre is a master suspense story creator, and it shows here. This could have been a boring search-for-self piece, like so many high school mandated novels, but was very entertaining. Not an action-packed spy thriller, but one of subtle nets and networks, more realistic instead.
The main character is not one that you particularly LIKE, but one that you appreciate as an interesting character study. Take note of that though: if you need a charismatic and likable main character, then this is not a book for you.

For more, check out the blog: http://theknittingpenguin.blogspot.co...
(This also talks about my thoughts on the miniseries, in case you're interested)

I recently found a review of this book (http://time.com/time/magazine/article...) that notes that A Perfect Spy is a kind of what-if autobiographical account of John LeCarre himself (fictionalized, obviously). Whether this is or is not the case, this is one of the best novels I've read this year.

Magnus Pym, intelligence agent for the British, has gone to London after the news of his father Rick's death. He is supposed to return to Vienna, where he and his wife Mary are currently stationed, but instead he sends his luggage on home without him. When the suitcase arrives, without Magnus, British intelligence is left to wonder whether or not Magnus has defected, taking with him information which is beyond valuable, and jeopardizing the lives of his "joes," or the agents and intelligence network in place in Czechoslovakia. But Magnus is not behind the iron curtain; rather, he's in Devon, along the coast, in a home where he's known as Mr. Canterbury, and where he's being going for some time. This time, he's there to tell his story, racing against time, waiting for his people to come get him and bring him in. He wants to leave a record of the truth, especially for his son, Tom. What he ends up with is the life of Magnus Pym from his childhood on, reflecting especially on his relationship with his father Rick, the ultimate con man, for whom the con never stops, not even with his only son.

While different from other novels by LeCarre, it is still a book that will totally absorb you from start to finish. The characters are very real, the story is not just one story, but several that interweave throughout the novel, and it is just one of those books that you will find difficult to put down.

I'd recommend this to people who like LeCarre's work, as well as those who like stories that focus on the relationships between fathers and sons. It's a long book, but it will go by so quickly that you'll be sorry it's over. Very very good novel; LeCarre is a brilliant writer. ( )

His best

This is essentially Le Carré's usual theme: the romantic young hero, frustrated in his quest for something to be loyal to by a broken home and a boarding school education, drifts into a career of deception and espionage. But in this novel, the last of his Cold War epics, it appears in its most highly developed form, fleshed out into a complete Bildungsroman charting the development of Magnus's relationship with his father, Rick, a professional con man. Magnus wants to love Rick, but at the same time needs to distance himself from Rick's criminal activities; he finds himself in much the same situation with his friend Axel and with Jack Brotherhood, the man who recruits him into a career in spying.
The technical business of spying is much less important in this book than Le Carré's inquiry into what deception does to personal relationships - Magnus may be a Perfect Spy in that he seems to be able to subordinate everything to the requirements of professional cover, but what does that really mean for his life and for those around him? The result is very much a novel, not a thriller, but we still find Le Carré's usual delight in language: the professional jargon of the spies is an important feature as usual, but there is also the whole new world of Rickspeak to discover, a marvellous set of catchphrases and clichés of the 30s/40s underworld that run through the book and link the Rick incidents together.

Definitely one of his best. It works nearly as well in the TV series, which I happened to see a rerun of recently, as in the book. ( )

a book about fathers and sons ( )