The Night Manager

I hadn't read this book, but due to the fact that it was going to be a mini-series for television, I decided to give it a try. Unfortunately, it dragged on and on. I endured the long descriptions, the rather dull character studies. The ending was really disappointing, thus ending my interest in reading another Le Carre novel.

I consider myself a John le Carre aficionado, and this is, hands down, my favorite thus far. We anticipate that his espionage and political threads are strong and tightly drawn. However, what is the true joy of this novel is the emotional depth of le Carre's hero, Jonathan. Driven by retribution and revenge, we get a man (as opposed to an automaton) with heart and soul as well as the obligatory skills of a spy. In THE NIGHT MANAGER, le Carre's prose is poetry, as exemplified when Jonathan, caught in an act of espionage, makes love to the anti-heroine (whom he covets, but thus far has never touched) by telling her: "I'm obsessed by you. I can't get you out of my head. I don't mean I'm in love with you. I sleep with you, I wake up with you, I can't clean my teeth without cleaning yours as well and most of the time I'm quarreling with you. There's no logic to it, there's no pleasure to it. I haven't heard you express a single thought worth a damn, and most of what you say is affected bilge. Yet every time I think of something funny, I need you to laugh at it, and when I'm low it's you I need to cheer me up. I don't know who you are, if you're anyone at all. Or whether you're here for the beer or because you're wildly in love with Roper. And I'm sure you don't know either. I think you're a total mess. but that doesn't put me off. Not at all. It makes me indignant, it makes me a fool it makes me want to wring your neck. But that's just part of the package." Trust me, it works. And if you don't get it, then seriously, you just don't get le Carre.

Jonathan Pine, sometime hotelier, soldier, killer, lover and agent, is swept up in a complex international intrigue. Weapons for sale is the pivot around which money, power and even romance impinge on Jonathan's life. The many roles, varied and useful as they are, leave him with no particular purpose in life. Until he encounters "the worst man in the world". The prompt is Sophie, who might have been a lover, but who belongs to Freddie Hamid. Freddie is aligned with Richard Onslow Roper, of Nassau, the Bahamas. The name and location are almost a slap in the face, since the Caribbean island-nations are host to shady firms. Little or no taxes and even less government supervision make it possible for the unscrupulous to engage in many forms of chicanery. Drugs and weapons loom large in that realm. Left at loose ends by the fall of the Soviet Union, British Intelligence services need a fresh cause. If nothing else, all those bureaucratic structures and their personnel need to turn their expertise to new tasks. The problem is that the Cold War enabled influential people to develop links through the various spy networks. How many wealthy aristocrats are now involved in picking up the pieces to further enrich themselves? And which ones are doing so? Pine, picked up by one of the new spin-off intelligence organisations is set to learn answers to these questions. A faked murder sends him to unreachable places with a new identity. It puts him in a position to penetrate the Roper organisation. Throughout this tale, Pine is driven by the ghost of Sophie, who was found beaten to death in Egypt. Even in the backwoods of Quebec, hiding from authorities and maneuvering to complete his mission, he is beset by the image of her in his mind. LeCarre's style is well applied in this tale of international wheeling and dealing. He exhibits a well-versed familiarity with the places described. It's his characters, however, that give this story its richness. From the intelligence bureaucrats through the "heavies" Roper employs as his protectors and fronts, to Pine and the women his life touches, there are no false images conveyed. The author portrays them effectively and consistently with no distracting or invalid diversions. Which is not to imply any of them are shallow or above credibility. Although the conclusion is unexpected, especially given the circumstances, the "spy novel" author has brought a new facet to intelligence writing. It's a captivating book and well worth either the established LeCarre fan or someone taking him up for the first time to have in their collection. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

A very un-Le Carre Le Carre, but a fascinating journey nonetheless. Our hero, a British ex-serviceman, is a night manager at a Swiss hotel when he comes across a roving gang of gun-runners. His brief acquaintance with the leader - an fellow Brit expatriate, venal but somehow likeable - leads British intelligence to recruit him to the Cause, and, through a series of carefully planned misadventures, he's adopted into the gang and shacks up at its private Caribbean base. Many observations on the politics of money laundering and the drug trade, particularly the ambivalence of the Cold War era agents towards cooperating with the DEA. Again, Le Carre's sense of atmosphere - particularly the stupefying torpor of the Bahamas - is tone perfect.

Let's face it. John's works (or should I say David's?)is not for everyone. Other reviewers suggested a pot of coffee to get through a chapter. Yes, if your particular area of interest in books lies with action-follow-action-follow-some-more-action-and-for-a-change-a-little-action, then JLC is not your writer. And if you're trying to get into JLC, for god's sake, don't start with The Perfect Spy. Almost made me quit. But Our Game, Night Manager, Russia House and Tailor of Panama are the top of his line and are to be enjoyed to the max...if you happen to like his slow but thorough character development. There is the old saying from Hitchcock that a movie is "life, with the boring parts cut out". John's art is in putting in the boring parts and making them sound interesting and the least bit exciting. I, for one, have fallen in love with Jed, got to know Dicky so well (can you see Roger Moore?), and leared to relate to Pine in so many ways, it's emberassing. I'm a writer myself, and if I maybe so bold, The Night Manager is my bible. Read it if you are taken aback by the fast-paced story lines of Clancy and his clones. Spying is waiting. Spying is taking in life, gruesome inch by gruesome inch, seeing characers rise and fall and be tossed half-dead into boats while evil sails on. Spying means that the only thing you will get after spending a day being a different version of yourself is love...and only maybe.Oh, boy....see how JLC gets to you?/Alec Corday

This is eerily familiar to anyone who knows the businesses of private banking, international arms dealing and covert export licensing by governments. Originally recommended to me by a senior security source in an international bank, this was one of those rare and riveting occasions when a fictional account of a subject grew more and more recognisable on closer reading. A military intelligence researcher recently confirmed this view, telling me that "if this had been written as a textbook, Her Majesty's Government would have tried to ban it". For each fictional character there is a real counterpart out there; certainly for anyone who knows anything about the real post-Cold War agenda for western governments there is some jarringly accurate analysis of motive, mechanism and personality politics. Whether you read this as simply a thunderingly good story to rank with Le Carre's best, or as a "roman a clef" which reveals the real personalities behind British political administration, it is un-put-downable. (Fun game for parties of international bankers/arms dealers: How many real-world characters can you identify?) I now issue this as a textbook to employees embarking on careers in banking, as a morality tale about the perils of money laundering. Others should simply enjoy, and wonder how much is true!