Product Description

A corporate lawyer from the House of Single & Single is shot dead in cold blood on a Turkish hillside for crimes that he does not understand. A children’s entertainer in Devon is hauled to his local bank late at night to explain a monumental influx of cash. A Russian freighter is arrested in the Black Sea. A celebrated London financier has disappeared into thin air. A British customs officer is on a trail of corruption and murder. SINGLE & SINGLE is a thrilling journey of the contemporary human heart - intimate, magical, riotous and subtly architected, showing us John le Carré at the height of his dramatic and creative powers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #181628 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Those who have followed le Carré's remarkable progress as writer (from the lean and brilliantly-plotted The Spy Who Came in from the Cold onwards) will be aware that the end of the Cold War gave the author no pause at all; while other espionage writers were floundering around for a subject, le Carré was able to deal with the dangerous realities of the modern world in precisely the same compulsive way he had always done. If some of the recent novels have, nevertheless, not had quite the elegant and commanding power of his best work, it's refreshing to welcome this new book as one of his most assured in years.

A corporate lawyer is brutally killed on a hillside in Turkey, and the reader is transported into a disparate but compelling series of events, taking us from a Devon seaside resort through the lethal world of the Russian Mafiosi to a tense climax in the High Caucasus. Of course, for le Carré character is every bit as important as plot: his protagonist, concealing his past security work by working as a children's magician, has failings as a father (which match the problems he had with his own father). In terms of the narrative, as so often before, the author has us at his command from the very first page.--Barry Forshaw

Review
"* 'An adventure that takes us to the ends of the earth via the rich landscape of the human heart' The Times * 'The master storyteller...has lost none of his cunning' - A. N. Wilson, Daily Mail * 'The book breathes life, anger and excitement' - Nigel Williams, Observer * 'A cracking thriller' - Economist * 'Nobody writing today manipulates suspense better. Nobody constructs a more tantalisingly complex plot... essential reading' - Chris Woodhead, Sunday Telegraph"

Review

‘A masterly work, faultless fiction of the highest order’

‘An adventure that takes us to the ends of the earth via the rich but often barren landscape of the human heart’

‘Single & Single manages to make some serious points about history amid a riot of whoops and skips, genre flourishes and delighted winks to the gallery’

Customer Reviews

Cure for insomnia
Unfortunately this is the kind of book where the author always, somehow, seems to overshadow the characters and story. I suppose that's what happens when excessive money and critical acclaim come your way. The bloated passages of dialogue and supposedly clever observations eventually just became hugely irritating and I chucked the book aside.

Blood will tell
Le Carre's writing talents didn't tumble with The Berlin Wall. Since the fading of the Cold War, he's demonstrated his continuing ability to weave a plot and image people apart from those in the espionage game. In this book, the Russians are still with us, but in a whole new light - they're active capitalists trying to make a ruble. Any way they can. Flogging "clean Caucasoid blood" to the West is merely an opening gambit, but it's a start. In support of this immaculate enterprise, the financial house of Single is recruited for money management. Tiger Single, the senior partner, with his son Oliver, are set to reap a fortune. Certain events impair the smooth flow of cash, and the Russian partners turn to a new means of profit-making, drugs. As a lawyer in a financial management organization, Oliver draws the line at drugs. It jeopardizes the future of the firm, and his own. He informs on his father to government officials in the hope of cutting a deal.

Like many other Le Carre novels, this one eschews a simple linear plot format. You are offered a thread to study, then another seemingly unrelated, one. You must carry the information you're given when other threads emerge. But Le Carre never leaves you hanging or lost. The threads begin to come together in the rich tapestry Le Carre is so talented at weaving. Nothing is inevitable, the twists are sometimes abrupt, but never implausible. There are no real weaknesses in this plot. Some of the characterization, however, seems a bit contrived, unusual in Le Carre.

Although not an espionage novel, Le Carre draws Oliver as if he was a George Smiley operative. He goes to ground with amazing skill for a lawyer, his cover the performance of children's magic shows. Oliver maintains this role long enough to marry, bear a daughter and complete a divorce. He is "run" by a Brock who teaches him tradecraft, which in Oliver's case only requires some touching up, not attending the whole course. Oliver is loved or admired by more women than one man deserves - his landlady, a Russian gangster's wife and Aggie, one the Brock's agents. Somehow, given Aggie's role, this last seems the least plausible.

As with other post-Cold War Le Carre novels, this one is as much education as entertainment. You close the last page but you find closing down the memories and topics more difficult. International blood traffic is a real issue, exactly as pharmaceuticals were in The Constant Gardner. The issues are real, the people mostly convincing, the events hidden from the public eye, but revealing in their likelihood. Any Le Carre novel is worth a read, some welcoming a revisit. Single and Single is one worth picking up again. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

No Sexual References
Its Really One of Le Carre's top five novels, really very good, i thought! Its about russians and the mafia and stuff... really very good , ... all in all...