Single  Single, John le Carre
Single  Single, John le Carre
2 Rating(s)
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Single & Single

Author: John le Carre

Narrator: Michael Jayston

Unabridged: 12 hr 4 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 08/14/2012


Synopsis

“Any reader who feared that the end of the Cold War would deprive Mr. le Carré of his subject can now feel a measure of relief. If anything, his subject of East-West misunderstanding has grown richer, and he now possesses vast new territories to mine" (The New York Times).

New York Times bestselling author John le Carré's novels deftly navigate us through the intricate shadow worlds of international intrigue with unsurpassed skill and knowledge, and have earned him unprecedented worldwide acclaim.

A lawyer from a London finance house is shot dead on a Turkish hillside by people with whom he thought he was in business. A children's magician in the English countryside is asked to explain the arrival of more than five million pounds sterling in his young daughter's modest trust.

In Single & Single, le Carré masterfully establishes a sequence of events whose connections are mysterious, complex and compelling. He tells of corrupt liaisons between criminal elements in the new Russian states and the world of legitimate finance in the West. He also paints 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.

About John le Carre

Fiction imitating real life seems to be an apt mantra for British born author, David John Moore Cornwell, or his pen name, John le Carre'. He had a very "un-normal" childhood, having been abandoned by his mother when he was five years old, and his father made and lost fortunes several times by using tricks and schemes, and even landed in jail for insurance fraud. le Carre' was reunited with the mother he never knew when he was 21. Unbeknownst to him, he developed his fascination with secret lives from his observation of his father's unsavory lifestyle.

le Carre' studied and received a degree in modern languages after a few "bumps in the road" along the way. He joined the Intelligence Corps of the British Army stationed in Allied-occupied Austria, serving as a German language interrogator, then worked covertly for the British Secret Service, M-15 as a spy to detect Soviet agents. He taught at Eton College while he was an M-15 officer. He ran agents, conducted interrogations, tapped telephones, and supervised break-ins. He was encouraged to write by other authors, writing his first novel, Call for the Dead in 1961. In 1960, he had transferred to M-16, the foreign intelligence service. His cover for that position was Secretary of the British Embassy at Bonn, and later Hamburg. It was at that time that he wrote, A Murder of Quality, and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. He assumed his pen name when he wrote, since officers were forbidden to publish in their own names.

le Carre's novels include: The Looking Glass, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Smiley's People, The Little Drummer Girl, The Night Manager, The Tailor of Panama, The Constant Gardner, A Most Wanted Man, and Our Kind of Traitor. All of the John le Carre' novels were adapted for film or television.


Reviews

Goodreads review by AppleJuice on July 08, 2011

This was my first John Le Carre novel. I usually pass them by, regarding them as boys' books - spies, murder, submarines/guns/planes and boring chase scenes. But one night I was out of books and so desperate for something to read that I scooted over the bed and grabbed the first book I saw on my hus......more

Goodreads review by Hugh on May 16, 2013

To my mind, this is the finest of le Carré's post-Cold War works. His outrage against the crooked British establishment is apparent through the words and actions of his protagonist (and, one suspects, his alter ego) Nathaniel Brock. His ear for dialogue is retained, whether it be in the mouth of the......more

Goodreads review by David on June 14, 2017

I enjoyed this Le Carre book, a complex creation of international crime and corruption, witness protection and a secret service task force seeking to prosecute corrupt British public servants. Oliver Single is a great fictional creation of a character and his story is well served by Le Carr's usual......more