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At the start of it all, Jonathan Pine is merely the night manager at a luxury hotel. But when a single attempt to pass on information to the British authorities - about an international businessman at the hotel with suspicious dealings - backfires terribly, and people close to Pine begin to die, he commits himself to a battle against powerful forces he cannot begin to imagine.
In a chilling tale of corrupt intelligence agencies, billion-dollar price tags and the truth of the brutal arms trade, John le Carre creates a claustrophobic world in which no one can be trusted.<>
About the author
John le Carré was born in 1931.
For six decades, he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the University of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5 & 6). He published his debut novel,
Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel,
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy,
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,
The Honourable Schoolboy and
Smiley's People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir,
The Pigeon Tunnel, was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel,
A Legacy of Spies, appeared in 2017. He died on 12 December 2020. His posthumous novel,
Silverview, was published in 2021.
Report
A marvellously observed relentless tale. Observer
