Our Kind of Traitor

By: John le Carré

Narrated by: Michael Jayston

Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's Summary

Set in contemporary, recession gripped Britain, a left-leaning young Oxford academic and his barrister girlfriend take an off-peak holiday on the Caribbean island of Antigua. By seeming chance they bump into a Russian millionaire called Dima who owns a peninsula and a diamond-encrusted gold watch. He also has a tattoo on his right thumb, and wants a game of tennis.

What else he wants propels the young lovers on a tortuous journey through Paris to a safe house in the Swiss Alps, to the murkiest cloisters of the City of London and its unholy alliance with Britain’s Intelligence Establishment.

©2010 David Cornwell (P)2014 Bolinda Publishing Pty Ltd.

old style Le Carre meets new

I've been reading Le Carre for only 3 years and tend to like his less-well-regarded later novels better than his older classics. Audiobooks are, however, giving me better appreciation of the old, and THIS audiiobook seems the perfect marriage of Le Carre's traditional theme of innocents consumed by a compromising Brit insider-elite with the more overt social concerns of his later novels.

I found this as well-written, plotted and characterized as traditional LeCarre, but at the same time it's a very accessible listen.

Great book, very disappointing reading.

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

The first book I have bought from Audible that I was unable to finish

How did the narrator detract from the book?

Very disappointing reading. Two examples: An Australian character is given a very bad cockney accent. Gail, the main female character, is read in a breathy voice that reminds my of Marilyn Monroe in those old films, Gail is a successful barrister! She would not speak like that.
The reading became so irritating, for these and other similar reasons, that I have been unable to finish the book.
If the reader can't do accents and voices accurately, he or she should just read it straight, without any attempt to be in character.

Any additional comments?

My first serious Audible disappointment. I will need to be much more careful in my purchases in future.

Great Le Carre

Fascinating story, terrific characters. One of my favourite writers on excellent form. Wonderful reader too. Did all the dialogue brilliantly, which made the book even more exciting to listen to.

Waste of time

Would you try another book from John le Carré and/or Michael Jayston?

I will try earlier Le Carre books

What was most disappointing about John le Carré’s story?

Far too much descriptive detail and little story with an ending that made me think he got bored with the book as well as me.

Have you listened to any of Michael Jayston’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No, but the performance was fine.

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Our Kind of Traitor?

All of it

Any additional comments?

This book makes me think Le Carre has lost his way.

A THOROUGHLY ENJOYABLE,RIVETING MASTERPIECE

Any additional comments?

The story is riveting.The rendition excellent-It had me interested to the last second.It's contemporary,the characters well-developed and plausible.All in all another masterpiece by John Le Carre.

Never again

I have been listening to audiobooks for many years and have never ever listened to a book which bored me as rigidly as this one. Because I had never read one of John le Carre's books before I was keen to download one of his books to give it a try. Even the valiant attempts of the narrator to breath live into this dull book never manages to overcome the frankly very thin story line. None of the characters become more than cardboard caricatures, and his description of women seems to have successfully bypassed modern life. The end, when it finally comes, feels rushed and totally predictable. How is it possible that a writer with a reputation like his ends up writing such drivel. I was determined to listen to the whole book, but ended up wasting my time, never again!

Dull, boring, slow, !!!

I Have never not finished an audible book - until this one, it is unbelieveably slow, and frankly dull!!
I have given up.... Take my advice and dont bother, if you do hope you can stay awake.

Much ado about nothing really

Well read (despite the dodgy Australian accent) and it did keep me entertained, but really the ending left me feeling so totally cheated and short changed, that in the end I could only think why had I bothered!

Not impressed

I started to listen to this thinking that Le Carr? was a good writer of spy and suspense, but was very quickly annoyed by the totaly un-necessary use of very bad language. In the end it overtook tha story line and was turned off.

I will be very hesitant before I get another from le Carr?. Not impressed at all and would give it zero stars if that were possible!

get on with it

Listened to many audiobooks.Downloaded after Time magazine recommendation. Lasted two hours into the story then deleted from iPod. Boring, drawn out. Like the reader, but the book fails to capture me totally.

Well read but totally pointless

I am not going to say good things about the book simply because it is Le Carre.

This story started well but faded into nothingness. There seemed no point to the story whatsoever and the ending was most unexpected and disappointing.

This is not James Bond

This is not James Bond, the critics who say this book was slow and boring should stick to James Bond. Jon Le Carre tell spy stories as they really are, it’s not all action and chases. It’s meeting and surveillance. This is a good story with good characters, a good book for any John Le Carre fan. If you are not a John Le Carre fan you should listen to James Bond or Jason Bourne.

Classic le Carré intrigue

Another really good story from le Carré, who is back on top form after his somewhat underwhelming ‘Mission Song’ (2006).

The story begins with a fine, sporty young couple, Perry Makepeace and Gail Perkins, who have an improbable encounter on the island of Antigua with an unusual Russian, Dima.

One curiosity of the story is its extremely long ramp-up: almost the first half of the novel is taken up with establishing “What happened?” during that first encounter with Dima on the tennis court in Antigua, and over the subsequent days. This swathe of the story is, however, far from uninteresting; on the contrary, it builds up the intrigue nicely, whilst establishing the relationships between the key players, not least Perry and Gail and Dima’s copious extended family.

The second half of the novel is just as good. From start to finish, we have here a tale of real intrigue which carries you along all the way to the final page.

Michael Jayston’s narration is, as always, splendid. It looks as though this is the final opportunity to listen to him narrating le Carré. With the next novel, 2013’s ‘A Delicate Truth,’ I guess we have reached the age when popular novels would be published simultaneously in print and audiobook format, as that one is by Penguin (not Bolinda) and narrated by John le Carré himself.

Hard not to believe the conspiracy laundering!

Liked it. Also was very well read. The story opens your eyes to the international money laundering banks are likely involved in!

Not as Good as the Film

I read this book having previously seen the film and as a big Le Carre fan who has already worked my way through most of his best books.

The narration from Jayston is as good as ever, a genuine pleasure to listen to.

The story is a good one and it’s well written but I find some of his stories end with a damp squib, so much story to get there, so much potential and then so little in the way of an ending.

I much preferred the film.