But I'm trying to branch out.
I just finished John le Carré's 2010 novel Our Kind of Traitor.
The last le Carré novel I read was The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. That was 25 years ago, and I'll never forget it (there's also an excellent movie starring Richard Burton which has helped to cement this as THE archetypal Cold War narrative, in my brain, anyway).
The last le Carré novel I read was The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. That was 25 years ago, and I'll never forget it (there's also an excellent movie starring Richard Burton which has helped to cement this as THE archetypal Cold War narrative, in my brain, anyway).
In general, I really enjoyed this newer le Carré tale. He sets it in the aftermath of the financial crash, and while Russia is involved, it's in a more modern, financial way. Money, money, money. That's how politics work now that the Berlin Wall has fallen.
There's also plenty of tennis. Perry and Gail-- a young, educated British couple-- are on a tennis vacation in Antigua, and they get sucked into the world of a Russian money-launderer that wants to defect. He's willing to talk if it buys his family amnesty.
The Secret Service swoops in, and an unsteady alliance is made between the lovely British couple, the Russian criminal with valuable information, and a couple of morally complex, partially compromised agents. There's no Jack Bauer or James Bond stuff. It's slow and steady, with occasional exciting flashes. It's very well researched. It's the kind of stuff that happens when the billions of dollars floating in the black market surfaces in the financial system.
Crime fiction is generally about microeconomics. Decisions made on the individual level, that usually involve money. it's easy to get into the characters and their psychology. Spy novels tend to be macroeconomic. Large scale stuff. So it's harder to develop the characters. They are dwarfed by the enormous stage. Le Carré does a superb job handling this. It makes me want to go back and read some of his other Cold War classics.
There's also plenty of tennis. Perry and Gail-- a young, educated British couple-- are on a tennis vacation in Antigua, and they get sucked into the world of a Russian money-launderer that wants to defect. He's willing to talk if it buys his family amnesty.
The Secret Service swoops in, and an unsteady alliance is made between the lovely British couple, the Russian criminal with valuable information, and a couple of morally complex, partially compromised agents. There's no Jack Bauer or James Bond stuff. It's slow and steady, with occasional exciting flashes. It's very well researched. It's the kind of stuff that happens when the billions of dollars floating in the black market surfaces in the financial system.
Crime fiction is generally about microeconomics. Decisions made on the individual level, that usually involve money. it's easy to get into the characters and their psychology. Spy novels tend to be macroeconomic. Large scale stuff. So it's harder to develop the characters. They are dwarfed by the enormous stage. Le Carré does a superb job handling this. It makes me want to go back and read some of his other Cold War classics.
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