Outstanding. I was surprised to see I had only read one of Furst's previous novels ("Spies of Warsaw"). I remember liking it, enjoying the detail and Outstanding. I was surprised to see I had only read one of Furst's previous novels ("Spies of Warsaw"). I remember liking it, enjoying the detail and obvious research that went into its writing, but also wondering if this was a tired niche, recreating Another Time and Another Place, with the black & white neon of "Rick's Cafe Americain" flickering nearby. As much I enjoy my repeated watchings of "Casablanca," Furst's efforts seem to made of higher, more serious stuff.
In this installment Dutch freighter captain E.M. DeHaan is called to service by fellow Dutch patriots against the Nazi foe. It's small, heartfelt effort from a small group from a small country swallowed by the Blitzkrieg. Unlike many of Furst's other efforts, "Dark Voyage," takes place during the war. DeHaan's ship the "Noordendam" will be a small but useful tool in the effort. What follows is a series of adventures stretching from Crete to the Baltic sea. One strength is the novel's real is its characters, which, on a freighter, can be quite varied. There is of course the usual salty but reliable crew, each of them possessing some real depth. In the last adventure, a Russian journalist on the run, and a quirky, dumpy nondescript but dangerous spy named I Kolb (which I'm sure is not his real name). Another strength in the novel is how Furst shines a light on the lesser stories and histories of the War, and the the untold, unnamed heroes who met the foe in the Darkest Hours. 4 1/2 stars rounded up. ...more
I may have actually liked Dead Lions better than the previous Slow Horses. That said, I'm rating it slightly lower, probably because I detect a similaI may have actually liked Dead Lions better than the previous Slow Horses. That said, I'm rating it slightly lower, probably because I detect a similar story-telling pattern. Herron is a great writer, and what's new here are bad Russians (old and new) and sins of the past -- and present. Throw in illegal internet shenanigans, a secret poison, diamonds, a possible 9/11 type plot, youthful idealism, a mysterious English village filled with fellow travelers, and you've got yourself a slam bang keep you guessing story. The first half or more of the book establishes characters and atmosphere, but then the last half or more of the book quickly transitioned (like its predecessor) from moody John Le Carre (lite) to breakneck episodic Robert Ludlum. It works, but I'm more a fan of crafted tone and character rather than fast paced action. Herron is gifted enough to give you both, but as a result something seems lost along the way. If you enjoyed the first novel, you'll see the Slough House crew is back, especially fat, farting, sly, and not to be messed with former Cold War spy Jackson Lamb (the head of Slough House). There are new arrivals in Slough House, and a departure or two. They may be screw-ups, but they're for King and Country at the end of the day. ...more
Slow Horses is the first in the"Slough House" series of spy novels. The "slow horses" of the title are the cast-offs and screw-ups from MI5. Rather thSlow Horses is the first in the"Slough House" series of spy novels. The "slow horses" of the title are the cast-offs and screw-ups from MI5. Rather than being fired outright, a screw-is sent to the end-of-career "Slough House." Arriving offenders are given an office and crappy meaningless duties while marking time. The place is run by a fat, farting, obnoxious, but-not-to-be-messed-with older spy named Jackson Lamb. Lamb is quite the creation, and Herron builds the Slough House environment and occupants with a care that you might find in a le Carré or Graham Greene novel. But unlike those two, Herron can be quite funny. At some point, after Slough House is established in the reader's mind, Herron shifts gears, things speed up (sometimes annoyingly so), and the book moves beyond I-Spy and more into straight thriller mode. The gist of things is that there's been a kidnapping of a young Muslim man in London by British right-wing extremists. They plan to perform an online execution in retaliation for terrorist acts by Muslim terror groups. But things are not quite what they seem. Some of the character motivations seemed thin, and the plot at times improbable, but I sure kept turning the pages. Published in 2010 the book stands as an early warning regarding right-wing movements, their political allies, and the danger they represent. I think I'm hooked Jackson Lamb and his Slough House losers. ...more
Warlight is definitely literary fiction, but it also operates as an upper level espionage novel. I have no trouble slotting this one up there with le Warlight is definitely literary fiction, but it also operates as an upper level espionage novel. I have no trouble slotting this one up there with le Carre's A Perfect Spy and John Banville's The Untouchable. Like both those novels, Warlight is about more than I-Spy. It's about historical context and historical crimes, it's about individuals making choices, with consequences playing out years and decades later. To some extent, I think Ondaatje does this with all of his novels (the ones I've read). I'm also a fan of The English Patient, but even at their best some of the early novels, filled with memorable and often odd moments, also struck me as uneven. It's like the poet was battling the novelist. Not so in Warlight, which I feel achieves a dark and beautiful balance. It still has its memorable moments. One I'll never forget is that of a female ethnographer (a relatively minor character) flying in a glider high above English Channel, monitoring the tricky weather on the eve of D-Day. What a strange and heroic image. It's the stuff of myth, but it's also rooted in fact. I remember thinking to myself only Ondaatje (both poet and novelist) could pull that off so wonderfully.
I'm aware I've not gone into the details of the novel itself. It's a bit like something from Dickens (1945 version) or perhaps J.G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun is closer. The story is about a brother (Nathaniel, age 14) and sister (Rachel, age 16) seemingly left in the care of a band of protective (and eccentric) criminals, by their parents (a distant and emotionally damaged father, and an intense but distracted mother ("Rose")). They are apparently heading to Singapore because of the father's new job assignment. World War 2 meanwhile is raging. The story is told through Nathaniel's voice, and it ranges back and forth through time and memories, supplemented further by what Nathaniel discovers years later, working in the archives (for British intelligence?) scrubbing evidence of British espionage wartime activities from the files. It's there he finds out more about his mother, and others. With the bits and pieces of what he knows, and what he remembers, he lets his imagination fill in the gaps. That act in itself is an act of poetry, as well as a necessary, if incomplete, remembrance....more
I enjoyed this, though I'm not sure I buy Lownie's assertion that of the Cambridge Spies, Burgess did the most damage. It's possible, but it's also imI enjoyed this, though I'm not sure I buy Lownie's assertion that of the Cambridge Spies, Burgess did the most damage. It's possible, but it's also impossible to tell. The Russians themselves had doubts about this drunken and wildly promiscuous party boy, and much of what Burgess gave them (suitcases full) wasn't even translated. Burgess was certainly in a position (multiple times) to supply the most sensitive communications and papers, so there will always be questions regarding the damage done. Perhaps the real danger that Burgess represented lay in the various sexual tales he could tell about important people within the relatively small world of the British upper crust (academia, intellectuals, Royals, etc.). Once Burgess defected, the British had no desire to see him come back and testify about anything. Being confined to Russia for the rest of his days was probably the most devastating sentence of all for this particular traitor. Self-clipped of his social butterfly wings, but with daily soakings in alcohol, he withered and died in a matter of years....more
About midway through David Cornwell’s (John le Carré) introduction to his fine autobiography The Pigeon Tunnel , the author, now in his 80s, reflects About midway through David Cornwell’s (John le Carré) introduction to his fine autobiography The Pigeon Tunnel , the author, now in his 80s, reflects on the nature of memory itself:
These are true stories told from memory – to which you are entitled to ask, what is truth, and what is memory to the creative writer in what we may delicately call the evening of his life? To a lawyer, truth is facts unadorned. Whether such facts are ever findable is another matter. To a creative writer, fact is raw material, not his taskmaster but his instrument, and his job is to make it sing. Real truth lies, if anywhere, not in facts, but in nuance.
I thought that beautifully stated, especially so for an author who has for so long, in his fiction, operated in the shadows. On the surface, le Carré is viewed as a writer of spy novels. Any close reader of his novels knows he’s much more than that. At his best, he’s a top drawer writer of literary fiction, a master of nuance. I think I saw somewhere that le Carré is part of a continuum that includes Conrad and Graham Greene. I certainly agree with that (though I would have included Robert Stone). Externally le Carré’s work is certainly one of spies, but internally his focus is always on, and I’m reminded of the title of one Graham Greene’s late novels, The Human Factor.
Le Carré’s autobiography is of course something else. On surface The Pigeon Tunnel does seem a grab bag of “stories” and people. For a while there seems a greater unity, as le Carré becomes more David Cornwell, an aspiring writer transitioning over from being an actual spy. I was a bit surprised just how much of a spy he was. I don’t know why I felt that way. I suppose in the back of my mind I always felt that le Carré dabbled a bit on the edges of the spy world, took notes, and then became a writer. In other words, the Spy stuff was a marketing ploy. Not so. Le Carré skirts the edges of what he can reveal. Evidently he came close, with one novel, to being prosecuted for violating the Official Secrets Act. In another instance he had considerable involvement in the Profumo scandal. He was probably considered a bright and shining boy, marked for advancement.
Then The Spy Who Came In From the Cold happened, and everything changed. An acclaimed movie followed. Divorce. More books, more acclaim. One surprise throughout The Pigeon Tunnel is le Carré’s willingness to tell you the original sources for some of his characters. I was both intrigued and disappointed. A part of me didn’t want to know. But Le Carré’s such damn good writer, and has been to some very hot places in order to do his research, that an argument can be made that such “telling” has only enriched the fictional material. (The Cambodia section of The Honorable Schoolboy contains some of the most darkly soaring writing that I’ve read in any modern novel.)
The reason for those field trips (Africa, Cambodia as it fell, Palestine, etc.) was rooted in le Carré’s discovery of a geographic error in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. The authenticity you sense in his novels is, well, authentic. So much so, that after reading about le Carré’s travels in Palestine and Africa that I came away from the The Pigeon Tunnel with two as yet unread must-read titles: The Little Drummer Girl and The Mission Song.
But the arc of le Carré’s writing career is only partially maintained, as the author stops often to reminisce over the movie business, Richard Burton, Fritz Lang, (a bizarre) Stanley Kubrick, Russian mobsters, Rupert Murdoch ("my old buddy"), Alec Guiness (a good friend), and eventually his con-man father, Ronnie Cornwell. Le Carré’s “relationship” with his father is a complicated, Dickensian one. His mother isn’t much better, as she seems a distant and loveless figure. The necessary love that le Carré encountered as he grew came primarily from siblings and half siblings. Weirdly, le Carré doesn’t seem to resent or hate his father. If anything, he thinks his father probably prepared him, through raw experience, for the writing career to come. Le Carré’s arguably greatest book, A Perfect Spy has this relationship at its heart. That novel is probably Le Carré’s real autobiography. With that in mind, The Pigeon Tunnel could be viewed as the fascinating, well written footnotes....more
Several times during Joan Didion's Book of Common Prayer, one character will tell another that they "were wrong." In what almost seems irrelevant. CauSeveral times during Joan Didion's Book of Common Prayer, one character will tell another that they "were wrong." In what almost seems irrelevant. Causes, love, politics, are all compromised. Wrongness is an empty term hardly worth the air it takes to utter the word. Nearly everyone is on the make. Lawyers can champion radical movements one day, hobnob with the beautiful people that night, and fly to Miami the next in order to seal a deal for Mirage jets. Air head college students join revolutionary movements and become air headed revolutionaries. Government bureaucrats (especially the ones overseas) are probably CIA. Didion's take on the 70s is razor sharp, and told through the forensic voice of Grace Strasser-Mendana, a rich and dying widow, who becomes fascinated with the personality and predictable fate of the neurotic bundle of nerves named Charlotte Douglas. Charlotte is both fleeing herself and searching for her Weatherman-like daughter. Boca Grande, an unstable Central American country, is as good a place as any for the unruly daughter to show up, or a grave to embrace you.
For a slim book, Didion packs a lot of story, perhaps too much, as she spends, arguably, too much time on Charlotte's first husband, Warren Bogart, an epic, poetry quoting asshole. Warren is one of the most abusive characters I've run across in all of literature (and I've read a lot). Didion knows this as well, and lingers a bit too long. But when the Didion (via Grace) put down comes, it goes to the bone -- and beyond. In a way I suppose it's worth it since Warren finally shuts his mouth. As I said, it's the 70s. Booze, drugs, threesomes in bed, machine guns, dinner parties, and cholera epidemics. Didion covers it all, and does so with admirable economy. I saw where some reviewers compared "Common Prayer" to Roth's American Pastoral. Well, in a way (daughters gone bad) it does, but for my money, Didion is much closer to the ground in capturing what the 70s were like. If you are a fan of Conrad's Nostromo, or Robert Stone's Flag for Sunrise, Didion's brutal examination of things American and Central American is a must read....more
Very disappointing. The book had possibilities, but it seemed to fall apart (fragment) over the last 75 pages (which is significant given the novel isVery disappointing. The book had possibilities, but it seemed to fall apart (fragment) over the last 75 pages (which is significant given the novel is only 228 pages long). Ever since Tree of Smoke, Johnson has been writing small, genre-like stuff. Nobody Move was a nasty and tight little noir, and the wonderful Train Dreams which is more-than-a-Western. But Train Dreams was just a reprint from 2002. At this point you have to wonder if Johnson is working on something big, or he's just suffering writer's block and cleaning out his desk.
The Laughing Monsters seems half-baked. It operates in a fictional zone dominated by John Le Carre and Graham Greene, but never seems achieve the weight of those two fine writers. The main character, John Nair, is the kind of character both Greene and Le Carre regularly employ: a drunk sorta-spy, who seems to lack a core identity, and who possesses a fair amount of self-loathing. This kind of character, in the hands of Greene or Le Carre, usually discover, when put to the test, some sort of honor or sense of Conradian duty that elevates them by novel's end. You can kind of see this with Nair, in his sloppy loyalty to his Ugandan-mercenary friend, Michael Adriko. (Adriko is a wonderful character, and he's the reason I kept reading this book.) But it's hard to get traction with Nair, since he's often drunk or, by novel's end, hallucinating. There is a love interest as well, but that seems tacked on. "Laughing Monsters" does have some interesting, and not too hopeful, commentary on the state of Africa. The people are being poisoned and the land is being raped (along with the women). Armed bands roam the countryside killing and looting. In the best exchange in the book, a U.S. special forces officer (yeah, we're over there), who is interrogating Nair, tells Nair that "[s]ince nine-eleven, chasing myths and fairy tales has turned into a serious business. An industry. A lucrative one." And later in the same interview: "We can do anything."
Unfortunately those nuggets (and a few others) exist within a thin and undeveloped context that leaves you frustrated. This should have been a longer, and better book. Johnson certainly has the ability, but in this case he seemed to have lost interest....more
John le Carre is probably the most literary of the great genre writers of our time. In most of his novels there usually comes a point (sometimes severJohn le Carre is probably the most literary of the great genre writers of our time. In most of his novels there usually comes a point (sometimes several times), where the elevated language, le Carre's sense of the story's moment, the ideas in play, all converge in a WOW moment of insight, wisdom conveyed, prophecy even. In le Carre's 2013 novel (the author is an amazingly prolific 82), those moments of literary high seemed to me to be missing. And yet, the author is still playing for the highest stakes. Oh, the story starts with a tremendous 50 page hook: A joint corporate (American) - British military ultra secret exercise against a feared terrorist. Engineered to occur, of all places, on the British colony of Gibraltar (that alone should have sent alarm bells ringing). Things go south in a bad way.
After that cracker jack start, things settle down into a more familiar le Carre zone. An idealistic private secretary, Toby Bell, to a hawkish British minister, senses something isn't right behind the minister's always locked door, the rerouted phone calls, the secret meetings, the altered protocols. Sensing the Wrong, he commits the ultimate bureaucratic betrayal. But his heart, the reader knows, is in the right place.
Jump forward three years, to the Cornish countryside, and the reader is initially bewildered at the cozy retirement life of a British foreign officer and his sickly wife. Spy things soon reassert themselves in the ominous arrival of an ex-solder turned leathersmith ( strong echoes of le Carre's earlier Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy here). Turns out this soldier was part of the Gibraltar mission, and he was a story to tell. At this point le Carre starts pulling his various threads together, and overall this is expertly, if a bit predictably, performed. But what elevates this particular novel, especially with it's super dark ending (one of le Carre's darkest), is that it anticipates the whole Eric Snowden "whistle blowing" affair. Oh, it's a totally different fact situation, but where le Carre knocks it out the park is how he envisions (before Snowden!) the threat to all of us that this unending War on Terror now represents. Le Carre has always been a champion of the individual against the suffocating bureaucracy of the growing police state. Here, late in his career, le Carre sounds a warning. The shadows are enveloping us. Decency, goodness and courage are no longer enough....more
The last book of le Carre's Karla series might be the best. I turned to this book after watching the recent -- and excellent -- film adaptation of TinThe last book of le Carre's Karla series might be the best. I turned to this book after watching the recent -- and excellent -- film adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (I read the book many years ago). I don't know why it took me so long to finish this series, since I also loved the second book, The Honorable School Boy. Maybe I just didn't want the series to end. In this chapter Smiley finally goes on offense against his nemisis, the Soviet spy master, Karla. But it takes him over half the book to realize that he has the silver bullet. The problem is that to use it is to lose something of himself. There is a cost. A human factor. But Duty and Revenge place Smiley, a good man, on the iron path. As with all le Carre novels, there is meticulous attention to detail, coupled with first rate character development (all of the characters). The atmosphere is heavy, ominious, layered with parnoia. Little scenes, like kids bashing a car by a lake, suggest much more about the moral state of Modern Man. We are living on the edge of an abyss, le Carre seems to suggest, so much so that the one constant, Duty (nod to Conrad), can even betray us. There are passages in Smiley's People that rival the best of Henry James, Joseph Conrad, and Graham Greene. It's Literature that just happens to be genre fiction as well. ...more
The trajectory of writer David Corbett's novel writing career is pretty breathtaking. If he'd been content to write pulpish crime novels like his firsThe trajectory of writer David Corbett's novel writing career is pretty breathtaking. If he'd been content to write pulpish crime novels like his first effort, The Devil's Redhead, (which is very good) he would have carved a niche, probably not unlike James Ellroy's. Violent, edgy, contemporary, great dialogue, "Redhead" had it all. But his second novel, Done on a Dime, you saw the writer stretching himself. It's an uneven read, due to plotting more than anything else. But what stands out in Corbett's sophomore effort is great character development (I'm still intrigued by the Jazz waif, Nadya, who seems like she stepped right out of a Beat novel), and an underlying moral concern for the way things happen to be. It is also the novel that introduces the Force-of-Evil character, Bill Malvasio (Malevolent?), who will feature so prominently in Blood of Paradise.
Blood of Paradise, will be viewed as Corbett's first major novel. It's noir, it's a thriller, but it's also literature, since it steps beyond the narrower confines of genre. You can easily liken the novel to Robert Stone's work (in particular, Flag for Sunrise), or Graham Greene's novels. The location of the novel surprised me - El Salvador. I was also surprised to find that things are as bad as ever down there, enough so to make a rereading of Joan Dideon's Salvador, as something more than a look at old history.
The story itself centers on bodyguard Jude McManus, who is generally a good, but psychologically damaged young man, trying to dig himself out from under the sins of his crooked cop father by just doing his job and keeping things light. Unfortunately for him, his principal job is to protect a hydrologist who is investigating the viability of a soft drink factory and its impact of the area's water table. What spirals out from those seemingly mundane facts is a portrait of El Salvador that is rotten through and through, and a people and culture living on the edge while those in power feast away. But those in power can never have enough, and they see threats everywhere to their profit margin, and the hydrologist just might be a future project.
Their main fixer is bad guy Bill Malvasio, who in a past life was a crooked cop along with Jude's father. Bill is basically a kind of devil, offering Jude hazy deals that will in some way wipe the slate clean. But also coming into the mix is Eileen Browning, a politically active anthropoligist (who is also, sexually, quite acrobatic). Browning serves as something of an angel of light, pulling Jude outside of his shell, helping him to see the suffering and corruption that are all around him. Corbett does a fine job pouring out a lot of recent history, without the speeches flattening out the characters. To integrate such strong political statements into a novel, and not sound like a preacher, is a very hard thing to do, but Corbett pulls it off seamlessly. And when action does occur, it's intense, and nasty. That said however, Browning's intriguing character, seemed to fade as the novel moved on, which is a shame, since Corbett seemed to invest a lot in her. But who knows? Maybe Eileen (and hopefully Nadya) will show up in future novels. And besides, the main card here is Malvasio and Jude. To tell more, would be to cheat the reader. Check it out....more
An outstanding effort by Le Carre. There are some who feel Le Carre lost something when the Berlin Wall came down. The Night Manager, written in 1993,An outstanding effort by Le Carre. There are some who feel Le Carre lost something when the Berlin Wall came down. The Night Manager, written in 1993, pretty much explodes that. It stands with his best efforts. If I had a complaint, it's the bad guy in this, "Dickie Roper," labeled, repeatedly, "The Worst Man in the World." If so, he's kind of lame. He's a dealer of illegal drugs and guns, but the real villains here are dueling bureaucracies, and the human carnage they leave behind. Oh, Roper's a bad man, but he's also something of dark romantic, like the novel's hero (and angel of Light), Jonathan Pine. One surprising plus is the love interest in this, "Jeds." She seems as fully realized as any character that I've run across in Le Carre's fiction, and I found myself hoping she would survive, possibly moreso than the brave, but bull-headed Pine. The overall geographic range of the novel is impressive. Switzerland, England, the Middle East, Canada, Central America, the Caribbean, and so on. Le Carre's descriptive powers are such that you feel he knows each of these places well. And the same applies to the peoples, and their dialects. If you like Greene, Conrad, and have enjoyed earlier efforts by Le Carre, I think you'll find The Night Manager a real winner....more
Contains one of the most fascinating -- and somewhat plausible-- JFK assasination theories that I've ever run across. One of the best spy novels, by sContains one of the most fascinating -- and somewhat plausible-- JFK assasination theories that I've ever run across. One of the best spy novels, by someone other than Le Carre....more
I really enjoyed The Spies of Warsaw. I had read a couple of Furst’s novels when the series first got started. As I recall, the details and atmosphereI really enjoyed The Spies of Warsaw. I had read a couple of Furst’s novels when the series first got started. As I recall, the details and atmosphere of WW 2 Europe recreated by Furst for these novels were impressive. On the downside were some of the characters, many of whom struck me as clichéd types from wartime movies. Imagine Casablanca as not one, but a series of novels. Well, the characters seem better drawn now. Oh, there are evil Nazis, and damaged, but gallant heroes, and beautiful women, but they all seem to have more depth to them now. This particular entry in the series, which takes place in 1937, has French military attaché (and spy), Francois Mercier, working the streets and agents of Warsaw. The sense of a growing darkness is everywhere, and Furst does such a deft job building a sense of dread, that you could swear that it’s Mordor, and not Germany, just over the border. Essentially, Mercier is trying to ascertain what Germany’s avenue of attack on France will be: through the Ardennes or through the Maginot Line. The French know it’s coming, just not when, and more importantly, where. Seems there are many in the French government and military that have a lot invested in the Maginot Line (and we know how that turned out). But there are numerous side stories, with various characters (Russians, Germans, Poles, and Czechs) which are all juggled well enough. The story is pretty solid, but its atmosphere and period details that really makes this one special. Usually, in Fiction, such attention to period detail can have you losing the characters as a result. In The Spies of Warsaw, it only enhances the characters and adds to their depth. ...more
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