John Tonks Follow

As a confirmed John Le Carre addict, I have tended to relegate Ian Fleming to second place as a spy novelist.
How wrong I was.
OK, Le Carre is the gritty spy realist with George Smiley’s hangups and his confused patriotism, but Fleming knows exactly who the enemy is and tells it how it is.
Also his first-hand knowledge of the glamour of gambling and international travel in the fifties and sixties lends his own brand of realism. This book is of its time.

Fleming considered this to be his best book. I agree. Yet it was to be his last James Bond novel - his books had failed to sell in the United States. Then John F Kennedy let slip that he had enjoyed some of his novels, and his fame took off.
He went on to write Dr No, Goldfinger etc, and the rest is history.

OK, it’s a time-shift story, but I did find the random jumps in time and space a little confusing at first.
The story though is wonderfully original and imaginative.
It is essentially a romance and a powerful one at that.

As with every other John Le Carre novel, I have read this at least twice before, and I keep coming back.
Drawing on Le Carres own first hand experience of the spy world, this is a dark sombre story set in Berlin in the East Germany of the cold war sixties.

Don’t expect a happy ending, Le Carre rarely deals in happy endings, but if you want haunting atmosphere and drama from a master story teller, this is it.

Some books I can drop after the first two paragraphs, others I’m hooked for life.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read this book as well as its sibling, Smiley’s People.
It starts off in a private school with young Roach (a new boy). Foisted off by his absent parents, he sees the world much as Le Carre might have done in his early childhood - as a watcher.
What follows is a masterpiece of Le Carre storytelling.

In one unforgettable scene, as Smiley debriefs Ricki Tarr in Lacon’s ugly Victorian pile, dawn finally breaks to the sound of Lacon’s daughter playing outside. She falls off her horse and is comforted by her mother, and in a brilliant switch of POV, we see the scene viewed through her tearful eyes - completely brilliant.

Also, the excellent 1970’s BBC production is available on DVD - get it.

I read the first of this four (or is it five?) book trilogy in my early twenties and laughed till I could hardly breathe.
I’m now older and more sensible - and find it even funnier.
Marvin, the paranoid android? - kind of makes me think of Alexa, the paranoid smart-speaker. Oh well.
And the answer to the big question - Life, the Universe and Everything, what’s it all about?
Well if you haven’t read the book yet - I won’t tell you.

As a confirmed John Le Carre addict, I have tended to relegate Ian Fleming to second place as a spy novelist.
How wrong I was.
OK, Le Carre is the gritty spy realist with George Smiley’s hangups and his confused patriotism, but Fleming knows exactly who the enemy is and tells it how it is.
Also his first-hand knowledge of the glamour of gambling and international travel in the fifties and sixties lends his own brand of realism. This book is of its time.

Fleming considered this to be his best book. I agree. Yet it was to be his last James Bond novel - his books had failed to sell in the United States. Then John F Kennedy let slip that he had enjoyed some of his novels, and his fame took off.
He went on to write Dr No, Goldfinger etc, and the rest is history.

OK, it’s a time-shift story, but I did find the random jumps in time and space a little confusing at first.
The story though is wonderfully original and imaginative.
It is essentially a romance and a powerful one at that.

As with every other John Le Carre novel, I have read this at least twice before, and I keep coming back.
Drawing on Le Carres own first hand experience of the spy world, this is a dark sombre story set in Berlin in the East Germany of the cold war sixties.

Don’t expect a happy ending, Le Carre rarely deals in happy endings, but if you want haunting atmosphere and drama from a master story teller, this is it.

Some books I can drop after the first two paragraphs, others I’m hooked for life.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve read this book as well as its sibling, Smiley’s People.
It starts off in a private school with young Roach (a new boy). Foisted off by his absent parents, he sees the world much as Le Carre might have done in his early childhood - as a watcher.
What follows is a masterpiece of Le Carre storytelling.

In one unforgettable scene, as Smiley debriefs Ricki Tarr in Lacon’s ugly Victorian pile, dawn finally breaks to the sound of Lacon’s daughter playing outside. She falls off her horse and is comforted by her mother, and in a brilliant switch of POV, we see the scene viewed through her tearful eyes - completely brilliant.

Also, the excellent 1970’s BBC production is available on DVD - get it.

I read the first of this four (or is it five?) book trilogy in my early twenties and laughed till I could hardly breathe.
I’m now older and more sensible - and find it even funnier.
Marvin, the paranoid android? - kind of makes me think of Alexa, the paranoid smart-speaker. Oh well.
And the answer to the big question - Life, the Universe and Everything, what’s it all about?
Well if you haven’t read the book yet - I won’t tell you.