Product Description

Bruno Salvador has worked on clandestine missions before. A highly skilled interpreter, he is not stranger to the Official Secrts Act. But this is the first time he has been asked to change his identity - and, worse still, his clothes - in service of his country.

Whisked to a remote island to interpret a top-secret conference between no-name financiers and Congolese warlords, Salvo's excitement is only heightened by memories of the night before he left London, and his life-changing encounter with a beautiful nurse named Hannah.

Exit suddenly, the unassuming, happily married man Salvo believed himself to be. Enter in his place, the pseudonymous Brian Sinclar: spy, lover - and perhaps, even, hero.

(20060917)

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #42464 in Books
• Published on: 2007-08-09
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 400 pages

Sunday Times
'Mesmerising.'

Review

'I imagine this is the first time that le Carré has been mentioned in the same breath as Updike and Roth. They, after all, are Literary Novelists with a capital L and N, whereas Le Carré is . . . well, what is he? Actually he is sui generis. Or, rather, he is his own genre. Quite an achievement that.'

(Sunday Telegraph 20060917)

'THE MISSION SONG is meticulously researched, and the tricks and tactics of being a top interpreter are convincingly rendered. You're left with the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps politicians, journalists, civil servants and the businessmen really are the lying, amoral bastards portrayed here. Perhaps it isn't only in le Carré's world, but in the real world too, that we're unwise to believe what we are told.'

(Independent on Sunday )

'Fast-paced and entertaining'

(Times Literary Supplement )

'Exquisitely crafted'

(Daily Mail )

'Le Carre's eye is undimmed, his passion for his craft as strong as it ever was. He delivers a tale that few could equal and none will surpass.'

(Observer )

'le Carre shows no sign of slowing up or losing touch.'

(Spectator )

'This thriller exhibits his familiar strengths: superbly realised characters; a succession of knockout scenes nobody else could produce; and a distinctive ability to fuse social comedy and moral anger . . . Mesmerising.'

(Sunday Times )

'Bold, vigorous and extremely funny.'

(Evening Standard )

'I think it's very good'

(John Sutherland, 'Front Row', BBC Radio 4 )

'A formidably sophisticated work of fiction, full of energy, rage and great humour. All the qualities for which le Carre's fiction has been admired - his descriptive powers, his electrifying dialogue, his cynicism in the presence of corporate greed and government power - are visible in THE MISSION SONG. That this great English novelist continues to produce work of this calibre with such frequency is simply astonishing.'

(Charles Cumming, Mail on Sunday )

Observer
'Le Carré's eye is undimmed, his passion for his craft as strong as it ever was. He delivers a tale that few could equal and none will surpass.'

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Customer Reviews

A great addition to Le Carré's post-Cold War output
Bruno Salvador, with an Irish Missionary father and Congolese mother, works as a freelance interpreter. As well as English, French and Swahili he also speaks a range of less common African languages.

As a loyal British citizen he is proud to be called on by unnamed government departments to assist in sensitive negotiations. But when he is asked to leave at short notice to attend a conference of unnamed people for unknown purposes on an anonymous northern island things go awry for him. As an interpreter he is expected to hold everything in strict confidence but as the conference progresses he sees and hears things that can only be detrimental to peace and progress.

It is very well done how Le Carré portrays Salvo as initially very enthusiastic and naïvely supportive of what is being planned and how he gradually has his innocence ripped away from him.

The Mission Song is well plotted (complex but believable) and whips along at a great pace. An exciting read but without any crazy chases or gun fights. Another great addition to Le Carré's post-Cold War output.

Can businessmen, Civil Servants and politicians be so corrupt and self-serving? Yes, probably.

On top form
I cannot understand why other readers of this book have been disappointed. Perhaps they expected a trademark tale of intrigue instead of an accurate description of the tawdry intrigues in which the Uk government regularly indulges in order to protect its interests in Africa (for which, read big business). Instead, Mr le Carre has given us a dark farce, seen through the eyes of the delightfully drawn central character. Whilst the surface story is fairly straightforward, once you begin to think of the underlying assumptions that are being exposed, you see that the fierce anger at the way the West has treated Africa still burns.

As for being 'literary'. Well, Mr le Carre has always been that. He has chronicled the dark heart of our civilization and all the forms of betrayal on which it based ever since he started writing. It is high time his work was recognized for this - if ever there was a contender for the Nobel prize, it is John le Carre.

Not for me
I bought this because I so enjoyed reading `The Constant Gardener'. The theme of 'The Mission Song' - Western exploitation of an African country - is admirable and the writing as clear and fluent as any other Le Carre, but I found the story tedious in its detail. In particluar the word-for-word description of a meeting on some unnamed island struck me as too long and laboured. Eventually the story did get going again but I have to say it took some perseverance to reach that point and even then I found the ensuing chapters disappointingly predictable.

Although well-written and clever, this did not seem to me to be up to Le Carre's previous work. Unless you're into detailed political negotiation I really wouldn't bother.