I just finished reading le Carre's latest novel and it, unlike some of his work in the not too distant past, doesn't disappoint. It is tightly plotted, moves quickly, and as in all of his novels presents a moral dilemma. How do we protect ourselves from terrorist attacks without harming those on the sidelines?
His answer is, of course, that we do not. The most wanted man in this case is blameless, being used by everyone who has caught him and then let him bribe his way free until finally he represents a fish so large that everyone wants him.
The novel is replete with a young female lawyer from wealthy parents who wants to protect him, a banker who loves her and through her recognizes his failures of the past and a security man who wants nothing to do with his peers in other parts of Germany's government and others. He only wants to turn the most wanted man to his own, more moral, use. There is, of course, the ugly American and the venal English, a mainstay of his that is almost boring but needed to move the story along.
I'm not going any further there because I don't want to spoil your read. It is interesting that le Carre seems to have came to the conclusion that the terrorists do not recognize individual guilt, only collective guilt so they have no problem killing any and all. But, like all those on the Left, and make no mistake he has become a full up member of the Left, he refuses to understand that what that means is that innocent people will be harmed on both sides and that the blame lies totally with the terrorists.
Since he is approaching 80 I doubt he will change all that much. But one can hope that the man who brought us, "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," "The Honourable Schoolboy," and "Smilety's People," and seventeen other very readable works will resolve his conscience before he goes into that not so good night.
A need I think we all have.
