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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
Final un poco decepcionante para mi gusto. El resto ya lo dije a medida que iba leyendo el libro. Buen estilo de escritura, buena trama y buenos personajes. Libro entretenido, aunque un poco técnico en ocasiones, pudiendo llegar a hacerse pesado.
I liked this more than Our Kind of Traitor but was disappointed by the similarly abrupt ending. I'm used to John Le Carre's books having a downbeat conclusion - his most recent novels just seem to shudder to an unsatisfying halt though.
It's le Carre, so it's great. Rural Cornwall, Gibraltar, Prague, and of course the halls of power in London. All-to-human characters being manipulated by other humans, governments, events.
I strongly urge reading John le Carre. He's a master.
I strongly urge reading John le Carre. He's a master.
I would class the Tinker Tailor trilogy as among my top ten books, and The spy who came in from the cold is simply brilliant , so as every book he writes is published you wonder if his standard can be maintained. This book is excellent, really well crafted espionage in a time where corporations and right wing American groups influence policy in British government. It is scathing of the whims of the new labour politician and Tony Blair's foreign policy submission to american interests and leaves the reader in no doubt about Le Carre's views but not the detriment of a brilliantly crafted plot with an excellently ambiguous end. I really enjoyed it and will now go back over his back catologue again.
I won an ARC of this novel through Chapters Indigo/the publishers on Twitter. A Delicate Truth is John le Carre's latest novel and it very much showcases le Carre's writing and narrative style, the quiet but tense story that unfolds carefully amidst a lot of meetings and second-guessing (who’s lying? who’s telling the truth?). However I found the ending of the novel to be a bit of a letdown; it felt too open-ended, which would've worked in a cinematic format but here I would've appreciated a more decisive conclusion or unfolding.
Overall, however, I greatly enjoyed this novel and would recommend it to fans of le Carre's works and fans of the espionage/thriller genre. My complete review of the novel was originally posted at eclectictales.com: http://www.eclectictales.com/blog/2013/05/01/review-a-delicate-truth/
Overall, however, I greatly enjoyed this novel and would recommend it to fans of le Carre's works and fans of the espionage/thriller genre. My complete review of the novel was originally posted at eclectictales.com: http://www.eclectictales.com/blog/2013/05/01/review-a-delicate-truth/
To me, Le Carre is like Wodehouse but with spies—if I feel like reading something comic I pick up a Jeeves novel, but if I feel like reading about spies I pick up a Le Carre. To be sure, the espionage game has changed since Le Carre's heyday, what with private contractors, the war on terror, and so on, but his characters and storytelling are still solid.
Maybe I'll just read more Le Carres so I can catch up on my book challenge.
Maybe I'll just read more Le Carres so I can catch up on my book challenge.
Privatisation and New Labour hits the spy-world and one mess leads to another, and the cover up just makes it worse... Our heroes will try to make things right and right the wrongs, but as always they are up against a much larger machine.
I won a copy of this book through a Goodreads giveaway.
I attribute my love of espionage to Get Smart, the spy TV show starring Don Adams as a bumbling spy that completely spoofed the genre. Growing up, I loved the weird gadgets and the silliness of the bad guys, but over time I've come to enjoy more serious spy stories as much as the light-hearted ones. After reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, I was happy to get my hands on the latest novel A Delicate Truth.
Le Carré doesn't try to make the world of espionage sound glitzy or glamorous. His characters aren't cut from the same cloth as James Bond: they're so normal, albeit with a heightened sixth sense for danger and a perhaps-unhealthy dose of paranoia. The world they operate in is unforgiving, and their missions don't end with neatly wrapped packages and bows. While the mission is usually the focus of the plot, in A Delicate Truth, most of the story happens three years after a mission in Gibraltar has concluded. One participant, Paul Anderson, is told that it was a textbook case and all was well, but others (both participants and nosy secretaries) aren't so sure. What exactly happened in Gibraltar? Who can be trusted when your government/employer is telling you one thing, and a washed-up spy tells you something else?
Because we need some background information and because other details come to light much afterwards, the pacing is a tricky bit to get right. Le Carré is marvelous at giving out the right amount of information at the right time, and sprinkling in those other details liberally, but not so much that they become info dumps. Everyone that knows something has a good reason to; there isn't any extended exposition, nor any requests that the reader suspend common sense in order for information to get shoe-horned in.
The story isn't a whodunnit, and you don't feel like you have to solve the mystery before the characters do. Rather, they sort of know who did it, they sort of know someone is lying, but the motivations for such actions remain unclear. It's a stroll through the world of espionage gone corporate, and a good look at the difficulties spies can face when they're reporting to both their government and an independent contractor.
I don't know about the rest of Le Carré's books, but Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy felt bulky at times. It wasn't a book you felt you couldn't put down. A Delicate Truth, however, was a breeze. It was serious, of course, but it wasn't very long and it constantly gave you a reason to turn the page. If Le Carré is going to continue straying from Cold War-era novels, and Truth is any indication of how that's going to go, I think I'll be okay with that.
(Originally posted on my blog Mark it Read, copied/pasted to Goodreads).
I attribute my love of espionage to Get Smart, the spy TV show starring Don Adams as a bumbling spy that completely spoofed the genre. Growing up, I loved the weird gadgets and the silliness of the bad guys, but over time I've come to enjoy more serious spy stories as much as the light-hearted ones. After reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, I was happy to get my hands on the latest novel A Delicate Truth.
Le Carré doesn't try to make the world of espionage sound glitzy or glamorous. His characters aren't cut from the same cloth as James Bond: they're so normal, albeit with a heightened sixth sense for danger and a perhaps-unhealthy dose of paranoia. The world they operate in is unforgiving, and their missions don't end with neatly wrapped packages and bows. While the mission is usually the focus of the plot, in A Delicate Truth, most of the story happens three years after a mission in Gibraltar has concluded. One participant, Paul Anderson, is told that it was a textbook case and all was well, but others (both participants and nosy secretaries) aren't so sure. What exactly happened in Gibraltar? Who can be trusted when your government/employer is telling you one thing, and a washed-up spy tells you something else?
Because we need some background information and because other details come to light much afterwards, the pacing is a tricky bit to get right. Le Carré is marvelous at giving out the right amount of information at the right time, and sprinkling in those other details liberally, but not so much that they become info dumps. Everyone that knows something has a good reason to; there isn't any extended exposition, nor any requests that the reader suspend common sense in order for information to get shoe-horned in.
The story isn't a whodunnit, and you don't feel like you have to solve the mystery before the characters do. Rather, they sort of know who did it, they sort of know someone is lying, but the motivations for such actions remain unclear. It's a stroll through the world of espionage gone corporate, and a good look at the difficulties spies can face when they're reporting to both their government and an independent contractor.
I don't know about the rest of Le Carré's books, but Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy felt bulky at times. It wasn't a book you felt you couldn't put down. A Delicate Truth, however, was a breeze. It was serious, of course, but it wasn't very long and it constantly gave you a reason to turn the page. If Le Carré is going to continue straying from Cold War-era novels, and Truth is any indication of how that's going to go, I think I'll be okay with that.
(Originally posted on my blog Mark it Read, copied/pasted to Goodreads).
