Le Carre's latest

Full book review from AP via The Star here. I got to read it early and for free because I'm an Amazon Vine reviewer. Got a special pre-release edition (albeit with a lot of typos and funny line breaks) with a print of a handwritten note from Le Carre to his fans on the cover. *syiok sendiri*

By JILL LAWLESS

John le Carre’s new book tackles the war on terror.

...

Ian Fleming’s action-hero James Bond may be more famous, but le Carre’s universe has the ring of truth. His secret agents exist in a world of stalemate, moral compromise, ambiguity and betrayal.

That’s again the terrain of his 21st novel, A Most Wanted Man, but in some ways the landscape has changed. The end of the Cold War changed things. The Sept 11 attacks changed them again, revealing a frightening new menace and adding a glossary of chilling new terms - “war on terror,’’ “extraordinary rendition’’ - to our common language.

“I have no nostalgia for the Cold War,’’ says le Carre, who worked for British intelligence in Germany in the 1960s, when tensions with the Soviet Union were at their chilliest. “I think I have nostalgia for the hope that existed during the Cold War that when it ended we would redesign the world. We never did that. We missed the whole trick.’’

A Most Wanted Man, which came out on Oct 7, is set firmly in our jittery post-9/11 world. Le Carre locates the action in Hamburg, the German port city where several of the 9/11 hijackers planned their attacks. Its central character is Issa, an enigmatic half-Chechen refugee who appears in Hamburg sporting a long black coat, muddy motives and a claim to a mysterious fortune.

To Annabel Richter, an idealistic young human rights lawyer who takes up his case, Issa is a challenge. To the German, British and American spies who hone in on him, he is a possible asset and a potential threat.

Le Carre is fascinated by the way globalisation and immigration have brought disparate peoples closer together, without bridging the gaps in culture, wealth and experience that divide them. Despite attempts at mutual understanding, the novel’s characters are on a collision course.

“We know so little, we understand so little, the cultural differences that separate us, the thought processes that separate us,’’ says the writer, whose real name is David Cornwell. “It’s very difficult to find a common ground. I’m not offering solutions here, but trying to paint a moment in our time. I’m very hung up on trying to catch the moment of where we are and trying to make a neat little story that reflects our feelings.’’

John Le Carre: ‘In my day – in the spook world – we saw ourselves almost as people with a priestly calling to tell the truth.’