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Jan 04, 2012

Ian rated it:

I usually enjoy about 2 out of 3 of Le Carre's novels. I loved the Constant Gardener (and the film is just as good as the book). Our Kind of Traitor is a little slow to start and I almost abandoned it (as I did with Mission Song) but kept going and then hit that miraculous place in a good book where things just start to "click" and then settled in for a great read.

Le Carre is not in a good mood. He is not hopeful. Which is not to say that there are no more heroes in Le Car More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 29, 2012

Xirxe rated it:

John le Carré, ein Name der für spannende Agenten- und Spionagethriller steht - mit dieser Erwartungshaltung machte ich mich an sein neuestes Werk. Ich las und las, amüsierte mich prächtig und ertappte mich dennoch dabei, immer oberflächlicher über den Text hinwegzugehen, bis ich bei Seite 202 (ca. der Hälfte) das Buch resigniert zuschlug. Denn von Spannung - keine Spur. Welch eine Enttäuschung!
Doch ich hatte mich selbst in die Irre geführt, denn bei genauem Hinschauen ist (außer bei der More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 13, 2011

SlowRain rated it:

This novel marks a return of sorts for le Carré. Firstly, it's a return to the topic of Russia, something that has been absent from the last few books he has written. It's also a return to his highly-stylized narrative, his great dialog, and decent characterization, all of which were absent from his previous novel, "A Most Wanted Man". However, what remains is still what I call an 'activist novel', which is pretty much what le Carré's last five novels have all been about. But this time More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Oct 11, 2010

Bookmarks Magazine rated it:

Much to the dismay of many longtime fans, le Carré chose to keep up with the times after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Yet, despite his shift from Cold War-era espionage to more contemporary themes, le Carré's signature stark prose, pitch-perfect dialogue, authentic characters, and moral indignation have stood the test of time. The critics were pleased to see "the master" (Telegraph) back in action, but some had reservations: While the Guardian lamented the "long, fussily narr More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 09, 2011

Nick rated it:

I think this is a return to form for John Le Carre. I haven’t liked the last few at all. This novel strays into Eric Ambler territory, in having the protagonists (the goodies, anyway) as ordinary joes, rather than professional spies. A relatively simple problem: Dima, a big-time money-launderer from Moscow, knows the details of every huge laundering scam for the foreseeable past, involving a lot of otherwise respectable people; he wants to do the equivalent of long-gone Le Carre baddies, and ‘de More...

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Aug 01, 2011

Michael rated it:

If what you know of the world comes from newspapers, or from the T.V. news, then your view is naive, selective, abridged and childish. If you have any mature sense at all then I think you appreciate this may be true.

All right - so, I'm naive and childish,... hopelessly so. It's the only way I can go on living in my personally simplified version of reality. Reading Le Carre though connects me with another, darker, reality, one I fear might be closer to the truth, whether it's "co More...

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Jul 29, 2011

James rated it:

There is always more potential in a John le Carre novel than in anyone else writing books. There is also, almost always, some experimental flaw that's bigger than anyone else's. I've learned to take the good and ignore the bad. He writes bigger books than almost anyone else, enthralling even when they're flawed.

Here we have the recruitment of a moneyman from the Russian mafia by the British Secret Service. Dima, 'our kind of traitor,' is the most interesting, wound-up, larger-than- More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 05, 2011

Jay rated it:

Not since Graham Green's "Our Man in Havana" has an author, here John le Carre, had such literate, yet tongue-in-cheek, fun with an accidental spy.

Perry and his girlfriend, Gail, are approached by Dima, a money laundering Russian of international proportions, who is seeking asylum in Great Britian. In the course of their becoming pawns to the machinations of several spy agencies, as well as the Russian mafia, we discover how we too are, in many ways, pawns in a global worl More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 08, 2011

David rated it:

Amazingly, given my love for thrillers and crime novels, this was the first Le Carré I have read.

Did I enjoy it? Yes. I quickly buried myself in the book, sucked in by Le Carré's fast moving plot, the collision between the ordinary world and the criminal and spy worlds, and the all too believable government corruption.

I didn't like the book enormously though, hence the 3 star rating. I found both Perry and Gail to be rather annoying characters and did not particularly sympa More...

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Apr 18, 2011

Yossarian rated it:

Le Carrè, anche in questo romanzo, privilegia il messaggio rispetto all’articolazione di una trama e di una narrativa efficace.
Le prime 100 pagine servono a selezionare i fedeli lettori delle lontane avventure di Smiley, ancora speranzosi di trovare una talpa all’altezza dei tempi, dai lettori in cerca di emozioni o di una qualche sostanza narrativa. Infatti tocca sorbirsi lo scrittore ormai ottantenne che esprime a tratti una narrazione in prima persona nei panni di una splendida avvocates More...

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Jan 02, 2011

Mal rated it:

David John Moore Cornwell--the man the world has come to know as John le Carre--was the son of a con man and a mother he met only at age 21. He spent years in the 1950s and 1960s working for MI5 and MI6 in the most difficult years of the Cold War. His frequently troubled life experiences afforded him the real-world experience that lent such authenticity and depth to the Cold War espionage novels he wrote so ably in the decades to come.

Le Carre's conflicted alter ego, George Smiley, the More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 30, 2010

William rated it:

BOOK REVIEW

Our Kind of Hero by John le Carre

Reviewed by Bill Breakstone, November 16, 2010

The English author John le Carre has written 22 novels, the first being Call for the Dead, published in 1961. I have read and enjoyed every one. He is one of those authors I just can’t get enough of.

His latest work is Our Kind of Hero, and has been critically acclaimed as one of his best. I don’t know if I would go that far, but it is a tremendously good re More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 14, 2010

Blog on Books rated it:

The twenty-one novels written by John le Carre over the course of his fifty year career can be rather neatly divided into two distinct categories: the Cold War espionage tales of East versus West, followed by the post-Soviet explorations of conspiracy and corruption played out in the morally murky world of unbridled capitalism. The pinnacle of the first era is generally acknowledged to be the “Smiley Trilogy”, comprised of “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy”, “The Honourable Schoolboy”, and “Smiley’s More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 24, 2010

Judy rated it:

The latest novel by John le Carre is getting positive reviews all over the place with sentiments exclaiming that the old le Carre is back and that he has dropped the preaching tone of his last few efforts. Personally, I like it when he preaches to us about the ills of our modern world.

In Our Kind of Traitor, I felt the master of spy literature was holding back just a tad and I purely hated the way this novel ended. I just felt lost through much of the story, but that could be because More...

5 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 15, 2010

Carl rated it:

Le Carre still describes the details of spycraft, along with all of the psychological tension, with more honest detail than any "thriller" author I've encountered. He's so much more believable than the action-packed Bond style writers, but with the risk of boring the reader. And, as many have pointed out for years, after he lost the built-in enemy of the "Evil Empire," he's had to dig around for villains, which has resulted in loss of verisimilitude, as best I can tell. An More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 27, 2010

Jim rated it:

After several disappointing (unsubtle, overly moralistic) novels in recent years, le Carré is back in fine form with Our Kind of Traitor. A Russian money launderer approaches a young British couple on vacation in Antigua, and seeks their aid in convincing British authorities to rescue him from Russian mobsters. In return, he offers to reveal detailed information about prominent British figures’ collaboration with the mobsters in a plan to gain a charter to open a huge bank in Britain. With the y More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 08, 2010

Gerald rated it:

Perry Makepiece is deserting Oxford University to become an "ordinary" teacher. Gail Perkins is a freelance barrister starting a career. Perry inherits money from his father. Perry and Gail, having met as London University students, embark on a "once-in-a-lifetime bargain tennis holiday ion the sun." So the story begins in Antigua. To that point Le Carré's sharp prose points the way to the kind of pleasure provided by his previous explorations of the sub-world of Intelligence More...

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Sep 05, 2011

Dot rated it:

John le Carré is the acknowledged master of the spy novel and has continued to find enough subjects to write about even after the end of the cold war. In this novel, he takes on the financial industry, whose influence stretches even into the hallowed halls of MI6. Much of the novel concerns the inner struggles of "the service" and the influence of financiers even at the higher levels.

Le Carre introduces us to an assortment of interesting characters. Perry and Gail are a yo More...

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Dec 18, 2011

Sistermagpie rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Jun 29, 2011

Jen rated it:

I had to rush to finish reading this book before our book club discussion. I started it in enough time, but it just took me so long to get through the first part of the book. It did finally pick up speed for me. I suppose the main problem is that I'm not a big reader of spy novels to begin with. However, le Carre is supposedly a master of the genre, and I did find the book to be an interesting spy novel with modern overtones. The links among the political and financial worlds and the crimin More...

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Jul 30, 2011

Fiona rated it:

Having heard so much about John LeCarré and what an outstanding author he is, this, my first reading of one of this books, was a disappointment. The story was interesting and once I got into it I was hooked, wanting to find out what would happen next. But I felt little connection to the characters and didn't find anything inspiring in LeCarré's writing style. Perhaps the interview that I heard on CBC radio prior to reading it put me off, but the whole thing of wreaked of the smug, white, priv More...

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Sep 10, 2011

Joe rated it:

Confession, this is my first reading of John leCarre, acclaimed master of the spy genre. I may find another of his books to explore, or not. "Our Kind of Traitor" didn't really convince me that I should hurry to catch up with all of the great stories I've been missing till now.
Confession #2, I'm having a hard time deciding why I didn't care for it all that much. Well, I hated the ending. But not because it wasn't the ending I imagined, or because the characters did somethi More...

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Jul 24, 2011

F.R. rated it:

Well this doesn’t just seem to be ‘The Worst Novel Le Carré Has Ever Written’, it actually jumps up and down and demands the title.

It’s odd that an author who has spent half a century writing suspenseful and intelligent thrillers, should now produce one so lacking in suspense or interest. Certainly it seems unusual that when the author returns to what once was his pet subject – machinations concerning Russia – he should create a work so lacking in insight or depth. But more than that More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Jan 03, 2011

Travis rated it:

"Our Kind of Traitor" describes any number of turncoats who serve a supposedly higher cause through their treachery. In this case, the most obvious candidate is a Russian mafioso who wants to save his own skin and the lives of his motley family from rival mobsters. The plot revolves around his attempt to defect with the help of a pair of vacationing Brits, but the idealistic young couple he enlists as his mediators cannot possibly comprehend the saturated evil to which they have unw More...

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Aug 06, 2010

Keri rated it:

I've never read any of John le Carre's novels but from what I've seen reviews of, this isn't even his best. So to say that it makes me want to read more of his work is a testament to the novel.

Gail and Perry, a lawyer and a teacher, decide to take a romantic trip to Antigua. There they meet a man named Dima and his family. In no time at all, they find themselves buried in international secrets and dealing with the Service. How much can two non-spies help?

The novel is writ More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 22, 2011

Bernadette rated it:

Perry Makepiece and his girlfriend Gail are upper-middle class nearly-thirty-somethings who spend a small inheritance on a once in a lifetime tennis holiday in Antigua. There, in (very) lengthy detail, they meet Dima, a Russian criminal with an extended family who challenges Perry to a tennis match as a cover for inveigling the pair in his plan to defect rather than be assassinated as he soon expects to be. Upon their return to England Perry, trying to shield Gail and her legal career from as mu More...

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Aug 27, 2010

Lobstergirl rated it:

Perry and Gail, a 20-something professional couple, are vacationing in Antigua when they are forcefully befriended by a money-laundering Russian mobster, Dima, and his extended entourage. Dima wants asylum in Britain for himself and his family in exchange for evidence incriminating his co-conspirators in European high society and the British parliament. Perry and Gail take their story to the British Secret Service, who improbably put them to work getting the issue resolved.

The prob More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Aug 27, 2010

Aaron rated it:

John le Carre is considered one of the true heavy-weights of the spy thriller genre. His novels The Constant Gardner, Smiley's People, and The Little Drummer Girl have earned him this rep. I've yet to read much of le Carre, but I do believe that each of those previous three found their way to 1001 books list - which certainly says something. Having little to use the way of comparison it is tough for me to place this book in terms of his others though honestly, and somewhat unfortunately I can t More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Feb 12, 2012

Ape rated it:

This is the first John Le Carre book I've... well, I can't say read as this is an audio book I've been listening to today. And I suppose it's not the first of his stories I've come to as I loved the film The Constant Gardener. I got 7 Le Carre audiobooks as free downloads and this is the first I've listened to. It's very good, although I preferred The Constant Gardener as a story, so it may be that there are better John Le Carre books. I intend to listen to the other ones anyway.

It's More...

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Aug 30, 2011

Emilie rated it:

This is spy novel, John leCarre is a professional of this type of novel and knows what he's talking about. This is not James Bond with sophisticated gadgets, technology is minimal which leaves room for the development of the plot and of the characters involved. A young couple (Gail and Perry) vacationing in Antigua meets a Russian oligarch (Dima) who chooses them as his intermediaries between the British secret services (and appoints them as referees of the fairness of the negotiations) and hims More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)