A delicate truth

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John le Carré's memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life, will be available from Viking in September 2016"A novel that beckons us beyond any and all expectations."'Jonathan Yardley, The Washington PostA counter-terrorist operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted on the British crown colony of Gibraltar.  Its purpose: to capture and abduct a high-value jihadist arms buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, a private defense contractor who is also his bosom friend, and a shady American CIA operative of the evangelical far-right. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister's personal private secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it. Three years later, a disgraced Special Forces Soldier delivers a message from the dead. Was Operation Wildlife the success it was cracked up to be'or a human tragedy that was ruthlessly covered up? Summoned by Sir Christopher ('Kit') Probyn, retired British diplomat, to his decaying Cornish manor house, and closely observed by Kit's daughter, Emily, Toby must choose between his conscience and duty to his Service. If the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, how can he keep silent?

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Contributors
le Carré, John Author, Narrator
ISBN
9780670014897
067092279
9781410458261
9780670922796
9781101618028
9781101620649

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NoveList provides detailed suggestions for titles you might like if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
These books have the appeal factors intricately plotted, and they have the subjects "conspiracies," "spies," and "intelligence service."
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These books have the appeal factors intricately plotted, and they have the subjects "arms dealers," "conspiracies," and "spies."
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These gripping, atmospheric spy novels involve government cover-ups and missions gone wrong. The complex plots of these page-turners enmesh compelling characters in a post-Cold War world situation. -- Katherine Johnson
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Similar Authors From NoveList

NoveList provides detailed suggestions for other authors you might want to read if you enjoyed this book. Suggestions are based on recommendations from librarians and other contributors.
Graham Greene tells sophisticated stories pondering human nature while maintaining high suspense; these gripping tales feature morally challenged characters struggling against disillusionment to find redemption in a treacherous world. He's inspired many, including John le Carré, whose The Tailor of Panama is based on Greene's farcical Our Man in Havana. -- Shauna Griffin
Like John Le Carre, Henning Mankell writes suspenseful, complex, character-driven books that feature plenty of introspection and wrestle with complex moral issues. While Mankell's often bleak novels include police procedurals and literary standalones, Le Carre fans who don't demand a spy element will want to try them. -- Katherine Johnson
Eric Ambler is another author who writes intelligent, tightly plotted, and realistic spy stories. Like Le Carre, Ambler is admired for his elegant style, nuanced characterization, and insightful, vividly detailed, and authentic depictions of espionage procedures and international politics. -- Derek Keyser
Focusing on the human side of spycraft, both John le Carré and Ted Allbeury craft themes of loyalty and betrayal among the paradoxical fellowship of spies. Both also have an essentially tragic tone that gives voice to the cruelty of war and deceit, though Allbeury's novels are somewhat shorter than le Carré's. -- Shauna Griffin
Readers who relish John le Carre's detailed world of clandestine operations will appreciate Len Deighton's leisurely cloak-and-dagger sagas with vividly depicted settings and well-researched procedural details, equipment and jargon. Deighton's ironic tone is lighter than le Carre's, but both share a world-weary wit and subtle and complex plots emerging against an ambiguous and sometimes disorienting background. -- Shauna Griffin
Fans of John le Carré's spy novels may appreciate Ward Just's realistic novels of political intrigue, written in a similarly compelling and psychologically acute style. Exhibiting a subtle appreciation of complex personal and political crises, Just probes the inner lives of his characters with deep seriousness tinged with bemused irony and sad affection. -- Shauna Griffin
An ex-CIA man and speechwriter for President Eisenhower, Charles McCarry brings a high degree of authenticity to his stylish, sophisticated thrillers, which share Le Carre's focus on the psychological cost of duplicity and betrayal in the world of intelligence and politics. His spy novels feature complex characters and labyrinthine plots. -- Shauna Griffin
Fans of John le Carre's mastery of the cerebral spy thriller should also try Daniel Silva, who writes elegantly of ambiguous characters and bleak atmospheres. Though le Carre's wrote his most popular thrillers during a different political era, Silva's moody style should please le Carre's fans. -- Shauna Griffin
Both John le Carré and Charles Cumming write intelligent and intricately plotted spy novels full of spycraft and procedural details that draw on their experience working for British spy agencies. -- Shauna Griffin
Set in beautifully described exotic locations, the intelligent, insightful spy thrillers by these two authors are full of complex, realistically flawed characters. -- Shauna Griffin
These authors' works have the genres "spy fiction" and "political thrillers"; and the subjects "spies," "intelligence service," and "cold war."
These authors' works have the appeal factors stylistically complex, and they have the genres "spy fiction" and "thrillers and suspense"; and the subjects "spies," "intelligence service," and "intelligence officers."

Published Reviews

Booklist Review

*Starred Review* Shockingly, le Carre no longer writes about moral ambiguity. Gone is any semblance of the notion that a government and its emissaries in the secret services could ever be on the side of the individual. That's been true for several novels certainly since The Constant Gardener (2001) but le Carre's latest is perhaps the most definitive statement yet of his new worldview. It starts with a 2008 counterterrorism operation, code-named Wildfire, gone wrong. A team of agents, led by a British foreign minister and a private defense contractor, was charged with capturing a terrorist on the island of Gibraltar. Billed as a rousing success, the op was, in fact, a fiasco. Three years later, a now-disgraced British agent tells the real story to retired diplomat Sir Christopher Probyn, also involved in the mission but in the dark as to what actually happened. Probyn eventually teams with Toby Bell, secretary to the minister in charge of Wildfire. Bell, also in the dark, starts digging and finds he faces a personal crisis: expose the cover-up and scuttle his career or keep quiet. Whistle-blowers risking life and livelihood to bring evil bureaucrats to their knees have long been a staple of espionage fiction. In le Carre's new world, however, evil bureaucrats never skin their knees; there are no happy endings, even attenuated ones. We commented in our 2008 review of le Carre's A Most Wanted Man (a film version of which will open in the fall) on the slow, inexorable way that, in the novel, institutional will grinds down individual lives. That grinding process is even more brutal this time around, as le Carre further establishes himself as a master of a new, shockingly realistic kind of noir in which right-thinking individuals who challenge the institutional order of things always lose. No ambiguity there but plenty of gut-wrenching tragedy. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: It's been nearly 50 years since le Carre broke through with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. He has set the bar ever since for espionage fiction that appeals to head and heart rather than just quickening the reader's pulse.--Ott, Bill Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
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Publisher's Weekly Review

State-sanctioned duplicity drives bestseller le Carre's entertainingly labyrinthine if overly polemical 23rd novel, which features a corrupt British Foreign Office minister, Fergus Quinn, and an American private defense contractor "best known as Ethical Outcomes." In 2008, a cloak-and-dagger plot to capture an arms dealer in Gibraltar under the mantle of counterterrorism goes awry. Quinn's secretary, Toby Bell, who was kept out of the loop, has incriminating information about the mission and the chance to use it three years later when one of the soldiers involved ends up dead and a retired British diplomat, roped into participating against his will, tries to salve his conscience about some nasty pieces of collateral damage. As usual, le Carre (Our Kind of Traitor) tells a great story in sterling prose, but he veers dangerously close to farce and caricature, particularly with the comically amoral Americans. His best work has been about the moral ambiguity of spying, while this novel feels as if the issue of who's bad and who's good is too neatly sewn up. Agent: Jonny Geller, Curtis Brown. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
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Library Journal Review

As he approaches the microphone, he adjusts his tie as well as his accent, with just a hint of his Glaswegian upbringing on show, but not too much, of course. Man of the people. "Allegations have been made concerning an initiative undertaken by New Labour, supposedly in concert with the U.S. government and with the support of a fundamentalist U.S. conglomerate on the soil of gallant Gibraltar. I'm here to tell you unequivocally that no such initiative was sponsored by the British government," he lies, and takes a sip of water. Le Carre, the author of such 20th-century classics as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, has nothing left to prove except that he can still be stung into turning out suspenseful, totally convincing political object lessons, as in his attack on the pharmaceutical industry in 2001's The Constant Gardener. His target of choice here is the mendacity of the British government and the easy camaraderie between the public and private sectors. -VERDICT This is a guaranteed hair-raising cerebral fright, especially for anyone who enjoyed Robert Harris's The Ghost or who just knows his or her email account has been hacked. [See Prepub Alert, 11/12/12.]-Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Kirkus Book Review

The distinguished chronicler of Cold War espionage and its costs casts his cold eye on the fog of war and its legacy when the war sets terrorists against the mercenaries and independent contractors to whom international security has been farmed out. A colorless midlevel civil servant is plucked from the anonymous ranks of the Foreign Office, given a wafer-thin cover identity as statistician Paul Anderson and packed off to Gibraltar, where he's to serve as the eyes and ears and, mainly, the yea or nay of rising Member of Parliament Fergus Quinn, who can't afford to be directly connected to Operation Wildlife. On the crucial night the forces in question are to disrupt an arms deal and grab a jihadist purchaser, both Paul and Jeb Owens, the senior military commander on the ground, smell a rat and advise against completing the operation. But they're overridden by Quinn, who says, "I recommend but do not command" that Operation Wildlife be completed. Shortly after its execution, Paul, promised "[m]edals all round," is bundled back into a plane bound for home. Sure enough, he emerges from the hush-hush affair with a knighthood and the unspoken thanks of a grateful monarch. Three years later, however, he happens to run into Jeb and hears the ruined soldier tell a decidedly less glorious story of the operation that involves extraordinary rendition, a dead mother and child, and a callous coverup. At the same time, Quinn's Private Secretary Toby Bell also becomes painfully aware of irregularities in the official record and confronts Jay Crispin, the Houston-based head of the private intelligence firm Ethical Outcomes, for answers. What he gets instead are more questions and personal danger. Resolutely keeping potential action sequences just offstage, le Carr (Our Kind of Traitor, 2010, etc.) focuses instead on the moral rot and creeping terror barely concealed by the affable old-boy blather that marks the pillars of the intelligence community.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
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Booklist Reviews

*Starred Review* Shockingly, le Carré no longer writes about moral ambiguity. Gone is any semblance of the notion that a government and its emissaries in the secret services could ever be on the side of the individual. That's been true for several novels—certainly since The Constant Gardener (2001)—but le Carré's latest is perhaps the most definitive statement yet of his new worldview. It starts with a 2008 counterterrorism operation, code-named Wildfire, gone wrong. A team of agents, led by a British foreign minister and a private defense contractor, was charged with capturing a terrorist on the island of Gibraltar. Billed as a rousing success, the op was, in fact, a fiasco. Three years later, a now-disgraced British agent tells the real story to retired diplomat Sir Christopher Probyn, also involved in the mission but in the dark as to what actually happened. Probyn eventually teams with Toby Bell, secretary to the minister in charge of Wildfire. Bell, also in the dark, starts digging and finds he faces a personal crisis: expose the cover-up and scuttle his career or keep quiet. Whistle-blowers risking life and livelihood to bring evil bureaucrats to their knees have long been a staple of espionage fiction. In le Carré's new world, however, evil bureaucrats never skin their knees; there are no happy endings, even attenuated ones. We commented in our 2008 review of le Carré's A Most Wanted Man (a film version of which will open in the fall) on the slow, inexorable way that, in the novel, "institutional will grinds down individual lives." That grinding process is even more brutal this time around, as le Carré further establishes himself as a master of a new, shockingly realistic kind of noir in which right-thinking individuals who challenge the institutional order of things always lose. No ambiguity there but plenty of gut-wrenching tragedy. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: It's been nearly 50 years since le Carré broke through with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. He has set the bar ever since for espionage fiction that appeals to head and heart rather than just quickening the reader's pulse. Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.

Copyright 2012 Booklist Reviews.
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Library Journal Reviews

Toby Bell, the foreign office minister's private secretary, tries to determine whether a 2008 counterterrorist operation aimed at abducting a jihadist arms buyer went awry. Le Carré's scenarios are up-to-date as his understanding of political intrigue is timeless.

[Page 58]. (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Library Journal Reviews

As he approaches the microphone, he adjusts his tie as well as his accent, with just a hint of his Glaswegian upbringing on show, but not too much, of course. Man of the people. "Allegations have been made concerning an initiative undertaken by New Labour, supposedly in concert with the U.S. government and with the support of a fundamentalist U.S. conglomerate on the soil of gallant Gibraltar. I'm here to tell you unequivocally that no such initiative was sponsored by the British government," he lies, and takes a sip of water. Le Carré, the author of such 20th-century classics as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, has nothing left to prove except that he can still be stung into turning out suspenseful, totally convincing political object lessons, as in his attack on the pharmaceutical industry in 2001's The Constant Gardener. His target of choice here is the mendacity of the British government and the easy camaraderie between the public and private sectors. VERDICT This is a guaranteed hair-raising cerebral fright, especially for anyone who enjoyed Robert Harris's The Ghost or who just knows his or her email account has been hacked. [See Prepub Alert, 11/12/12.]—Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO

[Page 75]. (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Publishers Weekly Reviews

State-sanctioned duplicity drives bestseller le Carré's entertainingly labyrinthine if overly polemical 23rd novel, which features a corrupt British Foreign Office minister, Fergus Quinn, and an American private defense contractor "best known as Ethical Outcomes." In 2008, a cloak-and-dagger plot to capture an arms dealer in Gibraltar under the mantle of counterterrorism goes awry. Quinn's secretary, Toby Bell, who was kept out of the loop, has incriminating information about the mission and the chance to use it three years later when one of the soldiers involved ends up dead and a retired British diplomat, roped into participating against his will, tries to salve his conscience about some nasty pieces of collateral damage. As usual, le Carré (Our Kind of Traitor) tells a great story in sterling prose, but he veers dangerously close to farce and caricature, particularly with the comically amoral Americans. His best work has been about the moral ambiguity of spying, while this novel feels as if the issue of who's bad and who's good is too neatly sewn up. Agent: Jonny Geller, Curtis Brown. (May)

[Page ]. Copyright 2013 PWxyz LLC

Copyright 2013 PWxyz LLC
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