My very first le Carré. I know, you probably think I’ve been living under a rock or something and I may have to agree with this because I can now honestly say it was a gap in my literary education. Now I know that this is what a well-written thriller actually looks like.
What I found fascinating was the characters, major and minor ones alike. They are most certainly not all pleasant, in fact very few of them are, but none of them is one-dimensional. Aside from the major characters like the protagonist and his murdered wife (that’s not a spoiler by the way!) who are thoroughly researched and presented in such a way that I feel I’ve known them all my life, minor characters are fully formed. The truly astonishing fact is that he can give secondary characters substance in about three sentences. It really is a joy to read.
The other good thing is that this is a thriller with brains. You can’t actually follow it if you are not paying attention, which is more than I can say about the Grisham I attempted a month ago! The really bad guys are identified quite early on, what is challenging is trying to get your head around all the in-between characters. There are so many shades of grey that you lose count. It’s fun.
What was also very interesting was the realism. There were no magic bullets, the hero didn’t turn overnight to Jason Bourne, shooting his way thorugh injustice and his next steps were never obvious. Everything felt real. Which makes it even more scary. Especially when in the author’s note le Carré describes his plot as a “holiday postcard”. I’m not saying everything le Carré says is gospel but I really wouldn’t be surprised if I read anything like that in the news!
I have quite a lot to say about this book but most of it focuses on the ending and that would be a massive spoiler. And not even I would dare to be that annoying! One detail that will probably haunt me is Tessa’s (murdered wife to the uninitiated) preference to freesias. My sister loves freesias and that detail actually gave me nightmares!
Enjoyed: Yes!
Read again: Absolutely!
318 days remaining – 12 books down, 88 left.
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