Somehow I missed this book by John Le Carré when it came out in 2010! I imagine I was waiting for the price to go down or for it to show up in my library queue. Whatever the reason it is always lovely to revisit a masterful writer telling an intriguing, intense story that keeps you guessing until the very end.
It all
happened on a tennis court at a resort in Antigua. Perry and Gail, getting a way from grey, damp England, were there to soak up the sunshine and play tennis in the tournament that the resort was hosting. Dima, a large, intimidating but extroverted Russian and his large extended family and including bodyguards is also playing in the tournament. Perry and Dima are paired together and Perry wins through skill and finesse, but just barely fighting off Dima’s strength and size. Afterwords, Dima declares that Perry and Gail are his best friends for life and invites them for dinner at his beach house. There Dima confides that he wants to defect and he wants Perry to make arrangements with government officials in England to do so. Claiming that he doesn’t trust anyone but Perry, who he considers to be an honorable Englishman, he claims that he has valuable information about money laundering and the Russian oligarchs involved as well as shady connections within the highest levels of the British government.
When Perry and Gail return home they are interrogated by the British Secret Service who are suspicious of both Perry and Gail, and Dima’s tantalizing proffer of information. However, Dima was clear that he would trust no one but Perry and Gail and so the Secret Service decides to ask for their help to talk with Dima, evaluate his information before they commit to extracting him and his family.
What follows is a cat and mouse game, that Perry and Gail must play not only against the Russian government and the oligarchs but also with the British government itself where Russian money and influence has wormed its way in. Unfamiliar with the geopolitical political implications of what they are doing, and feeling like pawns being used in a game whose rules they do not understand, Perry and Gail must find a way to honor the trust that Dima and his family have put in them as well as protect themselves.
This is a great book, filled with great characters and the moral ambiguity that is a hallmark of Le Carré’s writing. Some questioned whether Le Carré would still be relevant, or have any stories to tell after the end of the USSR, but he has proved over and over again that he can find relevant stories even in the post communist era that are just as exciting and speak to the same human condition as his previous books. With Russian influence and dark money still very much a concern, this novel is very relevant, especially today.
Brenda’s Rating: ***** (5 Out of 5 Stars)
Recommend this book to: Keith Ken, Sharon and Marian
Book Study Worthy? Yes
Read in ebook format.
Cal Hooper, a cop from Chicago, decided he needed a change of scenery. He had just gone through a difficult divorce, his daughter is living her own life and he has just retired from the Chicago police force, which after after twenty-five years just wasn’t the same as when he first started. So he moves to a picturesque village in Ireland, buys a hundred year old fixer upper, and makes friends with his neighbors and drinks at the local pub.
The Plot centers around a down and out author named Jacob Finch Bonner, who after writing his first novel, has never been able to live up to its promise. After struggling to deliver a second novel, which barely sold and unable to finish any subsequent novels, he now earns a living as a “writer in residence” at residency programs for aspiring writers. It is a rather soul destroying turn of events for someone who seemed to hold so much potential.
Anthony Peardow began collecting last things after his fiancée died unexpectedly. On that very day he also lost the keepsake she had given him. Bereft and alone, he began noticing things that people lost on the sidewalk, or in the park or on the subway and collected them and began to catalogue them with the date and place he had found them.
In 1921, Texas was thriving. Many farmers from the east had been encouraged to come were thriving and families like Elsa Wolcott’s lived comfortable lives. But Elsa, desperately wants to leave her bleak, constrictive life, as a childhood illness has labeled her “delicate,” “weak” and “unfit.” Tall and thin, she also does not fit the image of beauty like her sister, and so she is stuck, living with her parents with marriage being her only option of escape. That is until she meets Rafe Martinelli. Like her, Rafe wants to escape as well, away from the family farm, away from the constant responsibility. Inevitably, however, these two who dreamed of escaping become trapped when Elsa discovers she is pregnant. Disowned by her own family, Elsa is taken to the Martinelli farm and left to face the consequences. Strong Catholics, the Martinelli’s insist that the two get married, and Rafe too is trapped along with Elsa on the farm.
Mary Jekyl is strangely unaffected when her guardian dies. When her parents died when she was a child, she was left in the care of her guardian for whom she felt very little affection. Now in her twenties, with her guardian gone, she feels a sense of freedom and possibility that she had never previously been allowed to feel. There is just one thing holding her back and that is the fact that she is almost penniless. But Mary believes that she may be able to find her father’s killer, Edward Hyde, for whom there is still large outstanding reward, which would solve all her current financial problems.
Claire is running away from her perfect life. Married to man from a rich and famous family with his own political aspirations, Claire knows the importance of looking perfect all the time. But behind the scenes, her husband is controlling, and has a volatile temper and now she suspects that he is hiding a dark and terrifying secret. For months Claire has been plotting how to leave and today is her chance to disapear.
The story begins when the resupply boat with a relief keeper comes to the lighthouse tower. Situated on a rocky outcrop the lighthouse is just a tower with no land around it and rough seas which constantly batter the rocks around it. The keepers usually stay on the tower the entire time they are at the lighthouse, as even in calm weather waves can appear without warning and take a person out to sea. Although the resupply boat is usually greeted with excitement by the men on the tower, this time no one appears. The door to the tower is locked and when the men on the boat finally breakthrough the door they find the tower empty, a table set for two people not three, and the meal uneaten. The weather log kept by the principal keeper describes terrifying storms in the last few days, but the mainlanders have not seen any sign of a storm the entire week, much less the kind of storms described in the log. Another strange and unsettling detail is that all the clocks are stopped at 8:45.
who have become persona non grata in the current Communist regime. Stuck in a basement in Leningrad, the artist works on his current project, the photograph of a ballerina who has recently fallen from grace. Mesmerized by her grace and beauty, he fails to remove all of her, leaving a ghostly image of her hand behind. Now he himself becomes suspect but even as he suffers the same fate as the people whose images he so carefully removed, he leaves behind another legacy that will not be discovered until many years later.
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