Customer Reviews: Read 117 more reviews...
 Carre's latest on Islamic Terrorists and spies. January 6, 2009
Illuminates the mindset of Islamic terrorists and theCIA types who pursue them. Book holds reader,s attention though convoluted at times. Not always easy to follow. Burt Shachter
First Le Carre book December 28, 2008
Prompted by an NPR discussion of John LeCarre, I purchased this book. It was my first John LeCarre book. I am familiar with some of his other works, specifically those that were made into films (e.g., Constant Gardener). I enjoyed the book overall, but was left disappointed at the ending which left me unfulfilled.
 A Cold, Hard Slap in the Face December 26, 2008
John Le Carre's "A Most Wanted Man" has much to say about the upheaval in the post-911 moral universe. Previous fans of Le Carre who reveled in the "West good/ Communist bad" genre of spy novels may be unprepared for the complexities of the post-Cold War age presented in this novel.
Some reviews at this post have decried it as pro-Islamic. Only if you define as pro-Islamic any work which shows that people of an Islamic ideology can be as righteous or self-righteous, as driven and confused, as focused and fragile as any other people.
This is a well-written tale. The characters are given depth enough for us to feel that we know them, but not so much as to distract from the fast-moving plot. This is what readers expect in a spy novel, and Le Carre delivers masterfully.
As an American reader, I found the ending to be a cold, hard slap in the face. And yet I cannot call it unjustified. If our government is of the people, by the people, and for the people, then we are responsible for the actions of our government and all its agencies, even underground ones. What Le Carre has given us is a spy novel that makes you think.
An axe to grind. . . . December 23, 2008
The Cold War, Le Carre's forte, is long over, and Le Carre has turned his attention to the war on terror. But the sides have switched, and Le Carre's disenchantment with the West pervades his current work. Absolute Friends is another example.
One of the wonderful things about Le Carre was the nuance and ambiguity he brought to his stories, but I feel as if he's lost that. This story is about a mysterious young man who arrives in Hamburg for a mysterious reason. He's a Muslim--maybe, a Chechen--maybe, an escaped prisoner--maybe, a terrorist, an idealist--we don't quite know. For equally mysterious reasons, an idealistic young German lawyer and a not-very-idealistic British private banker decide to save him from deportation, which, given his background and clearly illegal entry into Germany, doesn't seem unreasonable. The Germans, Brits and villainous Americans get into the act as part of a larger scheme to entrap a Muslim cleric. Based on what Le Carre tells us about the cleric, this doesn't seem unreasonable either. But Le Carre clearly thinks it is.
We've all become disenchanted with the war on terror, no doubt, but Le Carre could always show us that all is not what it seems. But now, what he sees is clear, at least for him. It's too bad.
 A Most Wanted Novelist December 20, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Fete of Death
I'm not going to make any bones about "A Most Wanted Man." It's one of le Carre's best works to date.
Le Carre continues to run rings around other writers in the espionage thriller field. Whereas most of these writers feel compelled to espouse their political views at the expense of story and character and to mortgage their talent to their PC publishers who have political axes to grind, le Carre remains objectively bent on telling a well-crafted, well-written story.
Other, lesser, writers, propagandists essentially, may fume and pontificate on their soapboxes about their political weltanschauungs in preachy novels that masquerade as thrillers. Le Carre, however, doesn't permit his political biases to interfere with his art. This is especially true in "A Most Wanted Man," which is more a novel than it is a thriller in the sense that there isn't much action in it. It's a novel about lies, manipulation, and double-dealing in the spy game, where the innocent and the guilty become caught up in an internecine clandestine political imbroglio beyond their control.
--Bryan Cassiday, author of "Fete of Death"
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