Absolutely gripping

The combination of John Le Carré and Michael Jayston is pretty much unbeatable. This is one of Le Carré’s early novels that I had somehow missed, very glad I have finally caught up with it. Excellent. The only problem is that I find other audiobooks often a disappointment, whether it be the story itself or a substandard narrator.

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1 person found this helpful

The master

Another great book from the master storyteller and emotion twister. Perfect narration with 1st. class narration.

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5 people found this helpful

Very unsatisfying ending

This was a good book, with great characters with a good story but a very unsatisfying ending

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Subtle depiction of characters and time.

Really enjoyed this. Clever descriptions of the characters but more than that it made me want to know more about late 60s politics and post war Germany.

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okay

john Le Carre tells a good tale, but this is not his best. The end is, as often with Le Carre, disappointing as it Peters out.
Michael Jayson reads brilliantly as ever.

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11 people found this helpful

interesting

an interesting view of Britain's struggle to join the EEC, just as a bunch of snake oil salesman force us out.

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2 people found this helpful

Complex and intriguing tale of post WW2 politics

This long and winding story is, as usual with John le Carre books, like peeling an onion with layers and layers of intrigue and hidden relationships and issues. As we watch the news about various incidents which can't be totally explained (right now the poisoning of the Skripals), you can't help but wonder what we don't know and wish that there was a John le Carre type person who could explain it so that it makes some sort of sense. People who like straight forward whodunnits and simple news bites will probably not like this book but for me he is the best in this genre. Michael Jayston is the perfect narrator for Le Carre.

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A truly timely read for me

I chose this book because I am a fan of le Carre. I got sucked into the story quickly because (without being aware when I chose it) that it is set at the time when Britain was pushing to first become a member of the European Union. My current listening has coincided with Britain’s struggle to find a way to leave Europe again! As I write this review we have still not managed to find a solution to our exit which pleases everyone. So, for me, this was a truly timely read! The story is in true le Carre style, delving into the life of spies and diplomacy all those years ago. A bonus is that a good post war history lesson is woven into the story. I cannot recommend it enough. The performance is excellent, with amazing switches between voice tones which make it sound more like drama than story reading. Well done, Michael Jayston!

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1 person found this helpful

Good yarn.

Took me a couple of chapters to get acclimated. Le Carre captures the 1968 scene in all its ugliness. 1968 was a brutal year and Germany was in turmoil like USA, France and England. Being a George Smiley fan I was slow to warm to Turner. Having worked in Embassies, the atmosphere was related perfectly. I recommend this novel to any student of German history.

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Demands attentive listening!

In a break from the Smiley novels, le Carré gives us the interesting story of an intrigue at the British embassy in Bonn, set against a background of widespread West German hostility to the ongoing British and American presence in the country. Amid these tensions, Leo Harting, a mid-level temporary at the embassy, goes missing with an armful of sensitive files which threaten to derail British interests in Europe, and for several days nobody notices.

Into this situation Alan Turner is sent from the Foreign Office in London to investigate. Turner is a lonely and lascivious, but clever Yorkshireman, with a working-class chip on his shoulder, who doesn’t care how many people he offends in his quest to find out the truth.

‘A Small Town in Germany’ is a book of very long chapters. Many take over forty minutes to narrate; a couple are over an hour. For the first couple of chapters of the book I had no idea what was going on (any more than did the embassy staff!). It’s with the third chapter that the story really starts to get going, and here begins the long, middle section of the book in which Turner interviews — and upsets — half the people in the embassy, one after another. For me, this middle section is easily the highlight of the whole book. The dialogue is consistently splendid; on a couple of occasions the reader is treated to the amusing inner workings of Turner’s fevered brain as he tries to unlock the mystery; meanwhile Jenny Pargiter is surely one of the sexiest characters in English literature, simply on account of what Turner imagines about her.

By contrast, when the dénouement arrives, whilst it does successfully pull together the many loose threads of the story, for me it was a little underwhelming. It doesn’t live up to the middle section of the book.

Even so, this is a very enjoyable novel with a plot intricate enough to demand attentive listening.

Michael Jayston’s narration is particularly good on this book: clean and clear throughout. His only real fault is a couple of evident mistakes, one in chapter 11 and one in chapter 12, in which he pronounces completely the wrong word. Otherwise, excellent.

It’s worth noting that the language that comes out of the characters’ mouths in this novel is substantially more ‘Saxon’ than in any of the previous le Carré novels. This is definitely not one to play in front of the children!

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