I can't decide if Tessa was an utter fool who committed suicide or an utter fool who was trying to be a hero. I realize that we only see her through the eyes of people who adored her unconditionally, but why were those people so damn blind? She was self-sacrificing to a terrifying fault. ( )

Was a little disappointed with this. The structure of a protagonist, Justin, trying to uncover the investigation that someone had previously performed felt a little forced, and reminiscent of Tinker, Tailor. I somewhat wonder if he preferred this as he seems less comfortable writing women characters, so having a grieving husband as the focus was more in his wheelhouse. On top of that, several of the characters behaviors seem a little contrived, particularly Justin's boss, and one of the main villains, and also Justin's wife at times, unfortunately. Justin is a cipher, that gives the reader the opportunity to survey the whole landscape of pharmaceutical companies, based in Switzerland and running effectively nonconsensual human trials in Africa with the support of corrupt regimes and bland acquiescence of Western regimes, in thrall to multinationals and rich donors. The scope of the story is as huge as it is chilling, blasted by Le Carré's ice-cold fury. But the plot mechanics are a little clunky compared to his normal extremely high standards.

This book is in the category A Book You Own But Have Never Read for good reason.

The Constant Gardener is the jerky, dissatisfying story of a British diplomat's wife, murdered by a nefarious pharmaceuticals company for raising concerns about the safety of a drug being administered in Africa as a cure for tuberculosis. Ignoring the triteness of this plotline, my major observation is that the novel reads as though written in two sections—the first consisting primarily of dialogue, the second mostly narrative—then mashed together. Or as though the first half was written and set aside, and the novel finished later without a visit to the earlier portion. Add in that much of the story is highly improbable, with only superficial attention paid to its verisimilitude: the diplomat's ability to travel the globe on a single fake passport, searching for his wife's killers while being trailed by sinister agents of the pharmaceutical company with death always averted by seeming inches—except for the times he travels on his own passport undetected by a British government also bent on stopping him. As a bonus, there is an unexplained computer virus that wipes the hard drives of all those who corresponded with the dead woman. There are so many flaws in this novel, too many to list or overcome.

Le Carré has written more engaging books that don't read as if he weren't invested enough to research his work and provide detail to make its events believable. ( )

Quite different from le Carré's Smiley books! ( )

Justin Quayle is a member of the British Foreign Legation in Kenya. He has a beautiful, younger wife Tessa who is involved with various NGO aid projects – which she keeps mostly hidden from her husband as he probably wouldn’t approve.

In the opening scene she is brutally murdered.

Justin leaves his beloved gardening and his bureaucratic job to search out her projects and solve her murder.

He finds many more bodies, questionable ethical decisions and huge amounts of money leading back to big Pharma – and a drug purported to be a cure-all for the multiple drug resistant TB strains found in AIDS patients in Africa.

But too much is on the line for those in power to let their schemes be discovered.

I enjoyed this. It was very engaging and twisty and turn-y. It also brought up the ethics of big pharmaceutical countries donating their expired drugs to poor countries as well as the morality of doing testing on populations that are not fully informed and have no other alternatives for treatment. ( )