The best... from the master storyteller of our age

Excellent reading by Michael. My favourite narrator. My favourite JLC book too, keep listening again and again.

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7 people found this helpful

Another classic

John le Carre was master of weaving stories with strong and interesting plots, situations and characters. He wrote this with deep intelligence and knowledge. His attention to detail is amazing. My pleasure is being woven into the story without all the bangs and crashes of most stories of this genre. Heartily recommended.

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2 people found this helpful

Brilliant

Another super novel from John le Carre. Michael Jayston is a delight to listen to.

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5 people found this helpful

Mediocre

A little disjointed but still enjoyable.
Not the authors best of books. But I finished it.

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1 person found this helpful

One of le Carré’s better books, a disappointing ending, great reading by Michael Jayston

I was pleasantly surprised by this book, which I think deserves to be in the upper tier of the author’s books. The main character may be partly a transposition of the George Smiley but not entirely. There are also ingredients that go into the little drummer girl. It seems to be a framework that suits the author well. I found the story compelling but the ending I thought was disappointing. Brilliantly read and voice acted as usual by Michael Jayston

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Starts well, intriguing story, fades badly

With the Cold War over, le Carré had to adapt his stories to the new order of things. Here he presents us with his first “man on the run” story (I believe of numerous).

It starts well, with retired agent handler Timothy Cranmer disturbed from his wine-making, idyllic existence by the visit of two policemen on a missing persons inquiry. The reader/listener is then led on an interesting voyage with Cranmer as he tries to piece together what has happened to his friend, and increasingly finds himself persona non grata with the authorities.

Le Carré manages successfully to keep up the intrigue for the majority of the novel, which is told as a sort of first-person psychodrama.

Chapter six is worth a particular mention. Le Carré doesn’t often do humour, but he has a good go at it in this chapter — I take it intentionally. At several points it was so funny it had me laughing out loud!

Unfortunately, for me the story in its final two hours got quite boring, and the ending is rather abrupt and very unresolved. Not that this annoyed me; indeed it left me pondering all sorts of questions. But still, an odd way to end a story.

Regarding the narration, Michael Jayston is as listenable as ever. There are faults, however, in the recording. For one, there are from time to time some unconscionably long pauses between passages. For another, at one point in chapter eight, something seems to have gone wrong with the recording or editing, so that a word or two has dropped out, which was rather annoying. And then it happens again in chapter nine; then again in chapter twelve. Unless the audio file had gotten corrupted in download?

Overall, definitely worth a listen. But because of the poor ending, this ends up being (in my humble opinion) not one of le Carré’s better novels.

(In case anyone is wondering where the Ecclesiastes quotation at the start comes from, it appears to be a loose translation of part of Ecclesiastes 1:18.)

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1 person found this helpful

Le Carre & another master work

A truly great work. The meaning of one’s own life, against the familiar Le Carre political & corrupt canvas but with an added layer of depth.

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My least favourite Le Carre title. 4 stars!

Excellent narration. Storyline was good but not quite the usual Le Carre brilliance. Good to hear Michael Jayston though.

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1 person found this helpful

amazing

michael jayston is superb again reading another excellent book written by John le carre

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Good, but not great, le Carre

All le Carre is worth a read or listen, but this far from his best. It is about three characters, two of whom we never really meet or engage with.

The third is the (reliable?) narrator whom I never really got to like

The story, like all le Carre, is engaging enough but, again, lacked the need-to-care qualities of his best work

Excellently read, however.

My rating would have been 3.5 if this were an option

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