Good, not great, le Carre' ( )

Not his best. But always interesting, always atmospheric. And a cracking-good ending. ( )

Well-written, forward-moving plot, good characters. Nice to see an intelligently written book of this genre. The storyline is a little less complex and more discernible than some of Le Carre's older spy thrillers. But still - at the risk of sounding like the Emperor in "Amadeus" complaining that a Mozart piece has "too many notes" - I think it has "too many characters" at least among the secondary players that we find in the German, American and British intelligence and police services -- hard to keep everyone straight. A movie version might help in this regard. But the main characters: Brue, Annabel, Bachman, and Issa, are all original and interesting personae.

There's an occasional bit of political/editorial commentary inserted into the mouths of some of the characters, but it's not laid on too heavily (as in Crichton's "State of Fear" for example) and frankly I'm pretty much in agreement with the author's perspective anyway. ( )

Spy novels aren't my thing. I really had to force myself to get through this book. Lots of characters, many with multiple names. The characters seemed stereotyped to me--the misunderstood, but fiercely Islamic victim; the beautiful, stiff-upper-lip woman lawyer who everyone falls in love with, the slightly bumbling banker coasting to retirement. Blah, blah, blah. And of course, the Americans come along in the last 5 pages and screw up the best-laid plans of the Brits and Germans spies. ( )

A page-turner, as most of his books. ( )