Reviews

The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré

daisycutter's review against another edition

5.0

Peak le Carre. The moral ambiguity, the bleak setting, the spycraft... I never get sick of this guy. The Smiley books are great in their own way, but the new characters in TLDG make for a refreshing change of pace.

kp_sobo's review against another edition

mysterious reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

ianl1963's review against another edition

1.0

Life is too short to listen to books that engender an animosity to all the main characters.

Preferred ending would be death for one and all.

Humanity red in tooth and claw.

nedhayes's review against another edition

4.0

A strong book by John Le Carre -- I love his exact observations and his careful illumination of his central characters. It is a difficult situation -- the Palestinian / Israeli conflict, but Le Carre manages to outline the events in a way that is properly morally ambiguous.

His descriptions are so precise, that Le Carre makes it appear that what he is imagining on the page is sincerely happening, or has already happened. And when I read Le Carree, he makes me see the world around me more precisely.

Not as strong as his masterwork, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, but still pretty strong.

Powerful writer, good story, thoughtful novelist.

jarrigy's review against another edition

5.0

Easy to forget fresh off the back of Le Carre's alochol-soaked and manic "wife has left me" phase of his career just why he's regarded as the premier author of the spy novel. So leave it to both the Karla Trilogy, and this: his expansive, hyper-detailed and distressingly timely examination of the cruel futility of tradecraft in service of an eternal war with no victor, to remind you why that is.

honorsenglishdropout's review against another edition

5.0

"What am I dreaming of, he wondered, the fighting or the peace? He was too old for both. Too old to go on, too old to stop. Too old to give himself, yet unable to withhold. Too old not to know the smell of death before he killed."

krep___'s review against another edition

4.25

Raised as I was in the 60's & 70's on the image of Underdog Israel battling the evil forces of Palestinian terrorism (e.g., Entebbe and the Munich Olympics), reading this in the mid-80's opened my naive, relatively young eyes to the other side of the story. Le Carre's lead character is torn, as always, by conflicting loyalties and gut-wrenching moral decisions, as he immerses us in his delicious prose. Read this book. Do not watch the movie. According to le Carre, director George Roy Hill apologized to him for ruining his story. Enough said on that score.

cybergoths's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional medium-paced

5.0

cham3rion's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

laticsexile's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

As a story, it’s right up there with his other great books and apposite even 40 years on (reading this in 2023 during yet another dark period in Middle East politics). The reason I have it down as a 3.75 rather than 4 or higher is that Charlie seems to me to be too easily sucked into the opposite camp of her initial character’s leanings. It just doesn’t ring true. The plotting and detail and descriptions of places are all top drawer Le Carré