A Most Wanted Man

De: John le Carre

Narrado por: Roger Rees

The acclaimed bestselling novel about spies in "The War on Terror"—now a major motion picture starring Philip Seymour Hoffman in one of his final roles. The film, coming in summer of 2014, also stars Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe, and Robin Wright.

New spies with new loyalties, old spies with old ones; terror as the new mantra; decent people wanting to do good but caught in the moral maze; all the sound, rational reasons for doing the inhuman thing; the recognition that we cannot safely love or pity and remain good "patriots"--this is the fabric of John le Carré's fiercely compelling and current novel A Most Wanted Man.

A half-starved young Russian man in a long black overcoat is smuggled into Hamburg at dead of night. He has an improbable amount of cash secreted in a purse around his neck. He is a devout Muslim. Or is he? He says his name is Issa.

Annabel, an idealistic young German civil rights lawyer, determines to save Issa from deportation. Soon her client's survival becomes more important to her than her own career--or safety. In pursuit of Issa's mysterious past, she confronts the incongruous Tommy Brue, the sixty-year-old scion of Brue Frères, a failing British bank based in Hamburg.

Annabel, Issa and Brue form an unlikely alliance--and a triangle of impossible loves is born. Meanwhile, scenting a sure kill in the "War on Terror," the rival spies of Germany, England and America converge upon the innocents.

Thrilling, compassionate, peopled with characters the reader never wants to let go, A Most Wanted Man is a work of deep humanity and uncommon relevance to our times.©2008 John le Carre; (P)2008 Simon & Schuster

was ok

I've read some GREAT LaCarré books, and this one was good, but wasn't his best.

Exactly what I dig about LeCarre.

Perhaps a bit predictable but full of interesting and likable characters. Fast paced and understandably critical of the “war on terror”.

Superb!

Not as complex a storyline as other LeCarre novels, it is a superb tale of good intentions going bad in an ugly world. The performance is first rate, too.

Good Le Carre, nothing extraordinary

This is a very zippy tale with many of Le Carre's common themes: the misguided hippie girl, the wise older spy who's so much better than his bureaucratic superiors, the heavy-handed idiocy of American foreign policy. There's not much more than that, but as always it's well done and all characters are expertly drawn. A Perfect Spy and Absolute Friends are better novels for me that go farther than this, but you can't go wrong with this author.

The Latest from John le Carr?

His latest is A Most Wanted Man, and it is up to his usual standards. The enemy now are Islamic radicals, but the operators portrayed here are probably innocent. The man in the middle is trying to develop them as leads into a terrorist network - resources that are badly needed. But he is opposed by those who not interested in anything so subtle - they want to arrest them, using dubious means, and torture them: mainly American operatives.