Frightening, heartbreaking, and exquisitely calibrated, John le Carre's new novel opens with the gruesome murder of the young and beautiful Tessa Quayle near northern Kenya's Lake Turkana, the birthplace of mankind. Her putative African lover and traveling companion, a doctor with one of the aid agencies, has vanished from the scene of the crime. Tessa's much older husband, Justin, a career diplomat at the British High Commission in Nairobi, sets out on a personal odyssey in pursuit of the killers and their motive.A master ...
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Frightening, heartbreaking, and exquisitely calibrated, John le Carre's new novel opens with the gruesome murder of the young and beautiful Tessa Quayle near northern Kenya's Lake Turkana, the birthplace of mankind. Her putative African lover and traveling companion, a doctor with one of the aid agencies, has vanished from the scene of the crime. Tessa's much older husband, Justin, a career diplomat at the British High Commission in Nairobi, sets out on a personal odyssey in pursuit of the killers and their motive.A master chronicler of the deceptions and betrayals of ordinary people caught in political conflict, le Carre portrays, in The Constant Gardener, the dark side of unbridled capitalism. His eighteenth novel is also the profoundly moving story of a man whom tragedy elevates. Justin Quayle, amateur gardener and ineffectual bureaucrat, seemingly oblivious to his wife's cause, discovers his own resources and the extraordinary courage of the woman he barely had time to love. The Constant Gardener is a magnificent exploration of the new world order by one of the most compelling and elegant storytellers of our time.
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With "The Constant Gardener," John le Carré proves that he is just as masterful in the realms of modern politics as he was with those of the Cold War. However, politics are only a small part of this novel. This is a tragic, moving portrait of a man elevated beyond himself by grief. I found myself completely caught up in Justin's transformation from a nothing of a bureaucrat to an intensely driven crusader for truth.
The novel also examines that little concept of faith, whether it is faith in the spouse everyone thinks is adulterous, or faith that her theories were more than just crackpot liberalism, or faith that a life of previous ineffectuality can still amount to something.
I highly recommend this book.
Foxwarren
Apr 29, 2008
Caring
John le Carre's "The Constant Gardener" is one more of his works affirming his stature as a keen observer of the human condition. Many of his most successful novels have certainly revolved around the world of spies and covert activity. He doesn't disappoint here but his focus is more upon character delineation. George Smiley lived for us on television, of course, yet most all of this master writer's characters spring to life in our mind's eye. He persuades us to embrace his world and, no matter what plot twists he provides us with, le Carre draws us into caring about his people.
