[issybird]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

I felt like the portrait of the rich, stupid Americans was a bit overcooked and not worthy of Le Carre's usual sophistication. But I felt that way of the entire novel - it was written via machete rather than scalpel.

The outrage trumped the intrigue, is how I phrased it at Goodreads.

Originally Posted by gmw

The story seemed clumsily told and the character of "Paul Anderson" (Kit) was inconsistent and not really credible in any of his roles.

I entirely agree with this. Paul was a total buffoon. Kit was much better. He was a terrific people person and you could see he'd have been a good diplomat, especially in places where it was mostly to wave the flag.

The abrupt end, while not inappropriate, was predictable and left me feeling as if the work getting to the end was a waste of effort.

There was a lot of stupid going on here, most especially in regard to letters, files and so forth and how discoverable they all were. Why would any of them, Kit, Jeb, Toby, think that they'd be able to change things and that they wouldn't be found out and obliterated?

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Well, that was unpleasant.

One of the reasons I generally choose the books I do is that I like to see things that turn out better than expected and that have some sort of hope, or at least where the bad guys get some form of come-uppance. ]/quote]

Maybe they did at that, but it boils down to how high the rot goes. It seems as if Toby was able to get his files sent before the sirens started. Will there be a Katharine Graham at the receiving end? Or will it be David Pecker?

That said, I do enjoy Le Carre's writing. It is different enough from other "thriller" writers to be engaging, if only as a change of pace.

I have a lot of issues with the book and I'm sure we'll get to them, but there was a lot I enjoyed about it, also. This was absolutely a page-turner, from the start in medias res, to teasing out who the players were, to jumping around in the action and the point of view. The writing evoked action, timing and consequence.

Ultimately, though, here's where it fell flat for me, and maybe I'm just too jaded ten years after the book was published and given what's going on in the world; I didn't think the collateral death of an illegal migrant and her baby would have been sufficient as the first cause of all this, especially not for a career soldier and foreign office wonks who've signed on to the Official Secrets Act. It needed to be more.