Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
Loading... Single & Single (original 1999; edition 2000)by John Le Carre
Work InformationSingle & Single by John le Carré (1999)
None Loading...
Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. The driest le Carre' book I've read to date, but still intriguing. Delve into the world of how financiers handle (and mishandle) international bank accounts in unscrupulous ways for unscrupulous people/organizations... and how dangerous that can be for those who want to stay in as well as those who want to get out. Splendid. To say it is his best later book is to damn it with faint praise. It is just a darn good example of what Le Carre does so well, writing about the English and the Russians. He lost his way when the Cold War lost its way. Here he is back in that world he understands and loves and it makes all the difference. I see this book has underwhelmed many, but I fail to see why. Unreservedly recommended. 'He's a bastard' says Oliver at one point. To which the Swiss banker replies: http://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/single-and-single-by-john-...
When Oliver learns that one of his former colleagues has had his head blown off, he emerges to rescue his father from the same fate. To do this he becomes, in essence, a spy. The spy who came back to the bank. That is how le Carré very neatly gets around the whole problem of his banking thriller: he turns it into a spy thriller. Once this trick is turned he is back on his old turf and into his favorite themes: deception and suspicion and loyalty and betrayal. All of these he handles with his usual spark and originality. The moral center of the story is a young man who betrays his father in order to save him. In le Carré's hands betrayal becomes a form of loyalty. It is a rich idea, which le Carré writes richly. But try getting it across in a real bank! Genauer betrachtet ist le Carrés Thriller zwar spannend, aber letztlich kein Thriller. Es ist vielmehr der Entwicklungsroman eines jungen Mannes in einer Wohlstandswelt, die an ihre eigenen Werte nicht mehr glaubt. Le Carre exposes the dark side of international finance when the founder of a major investment house disappears, and his estranged son hunts global criminals to Zurich, Tbilisi, and Instanbul. Distinctions
A lawyer from the London finance house of Single & Single is shot dead on a Turkish hillside by people with whom he thought he was in business. A children's magician is asked by his bank to explain the unsolicited arrival of more than five million pounds sterling in his young daughter's modest trust. A freighter bound for Liverpool is boarded by Russian coast guards in the Black Sea. The celebrated London merchant venturer "Tiger" Single disappears into thin air. In Single & Single the writer who both epitomizes and transcends the novel of espionage opens with a haunting set piece, then establishes a sequence of events whose connections are mysterious, complex, and compelling. This is a story of corrupt liaisons between criminal elements in the new Russian states and the world of legitimate finance in the West. Le Carré's finest novel in years, it is also an intimate portrait of two families: one Russian, the other English; one trading illicit goods, the other laundering the profits; one betrayed by a son-in-law, the other betrayed, and redeemed, by a son. This is territory le Carré knows better than anyone. Masterful and prescient, he is writing at the top of his creative powers, and Oliver Single, the central protagonist, is one of his most fascinating characters. No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)823.914Literature English English fiction Modern Period 1901-1999 1945-1999LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
This was a curious novel for sure. Lots of wandering around and yeah it all comes together but what exactly we discover is still rather vague! Anyway, an awful lot of money laundering! ( )