Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.48 AVERAGE
3.48 AVERAGE
Starts off well.. The first chapter is super reading. A lawyer is murdered by the gang-of-"entrepreneurs" he was working for. Oliver, who is a (former) colleague of the dead lawyer gets involved. He races against time, the establishment and his own morality to try and save his father (and boss) from suffering the same fate.
The story is mostly flashback, as Oliver, has given up on his previous life as a hot-shot lawyer for the Russian "mob". He returns to it, to save the father. The story is predictable, the action is okay, and the protagonist is fairly sketchily detailed, and some strokes are a bit too broad.
The climax is a bit of an anticlimax, and it all ends too quickly and feels incomplete for all the build-up to it.
Not exactly le Carre's best work.
The story is mostly flashback, as Oliver, has given up on his previous life as a hot-shot lawyer for the Russian "mob". He returns to it, to save the father. The story is predictable, the action is okay, and the protagonist is fairly sketchily detailed, and some strokes are a bit too broad.
The climax is a bit of an anticlimax, and it all ends too quickly and feels incomplete for all the build-up to it.
Not exactly le Carre's best work.
For faithful readers of LeCarre, this is a book that had to be written. It is an exploration of the relationship between a father and son, closely mirroring the internal struggle LeCarre had with his own father.
The book opens with as horrifying a description of the mindset of a man about to be murdered as has ever been written. The soon-to-be murdered man is a lawyer for a British investment house. The details of his murder by Russian mobsters in Turkey raise questions with Brock, a British Customs and Excise officer. The head of the investment house is Tiger Single, and his son, Oliver, has sought to distance himself from this father's questionable business practices.
When a vast amount of money mysteriously appears in his daughter's college fund, Oliver joins forces with Brock to bring down his father. Two Russian brothers enter the fray as they seek to reacquire the five million pounds sterling which Tiger Single has managed to acquire from them.
Although this is not an espionage novel, it travels highways and byways familiar to LeCarre's admirers. Several characters from his other books make appearances here, and help to weave together a plot featuring high finance, money laundering, bloody violence, betrayal and redemption.
The book opens with as horrifying a description of the mindset of a man about to be murdered as has ever been written. The soon-to-be murdered man is a lawyer for a British investment house. The details of his murder by Russian mobsters in Turkey raise questions with Brock, a British Customs and Excise officer. The head of the investment house is Tiger Single, and his son, Oliver, has sought to distance himself from this father's questionable business practices.
When a vast amount of money mysteriously appears in his daughter's college fund, Oliver joins forces with Brock to bring down his father. Two Russian brothers enter the fray as they seek to reacquire the five million pounds sterling which Tiger Single has managed to acquire from them.
Although this is not an espionage novel, it travels highways and byways familiar to LeCarre's admirers. Several characters from his other books make appearances here, and help to weave together a plot featuring high finance, money laundering, bloody violence, betrayal and redemption.
Normally I love Le Carre but this one just didn't click for me. Bits of it were great but it really went on a bit and the threads seemed jumbled, somehow.
Listened on Hoopla. Hard to determine who was good and bad and what the intrigue was that surrounded them. A bit more swearing and sexual innuendo than I’ve read in a while. Definitely not at the level of his The Soy can in from the Cold.
Originally published on my blog here in May 2003.
Oliver Single begins a promising career in the legal department of his father's banking company, only to gradually realise that its fortunes rest on the laundering of money for organised crime. As the company's biggest partnership, with "entrepeneurs" in the disintegrating Soviet Union, takes shape, Oliver makes the fateful decision to betray his father to the authorities. This part of the story is told in flashback; the main plot of Single and Single is about what happens when Oliver's father tracks him down in his new identity supplied by the security services following the murder of one of the bank's employees by the Russians.
Single and Single is not the only le Carré novel to revolve around a complex father-son relationship; in this respect, as in tone and structure, it is reminiscent of [b:The Secret Pilgrim|46462|The Secret Pilgrim (George Smiley, #8)|John le Carré|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1170330461s/46462.jpg|876061]. The moral ambiguity of the characters is also, of course, a trademark of le Carré, and, as in The Secret Pilgrim the imperfections of both father and son fuel not just their relationship but the whole novel. However, Single and Single is prevented from being among the better le Carré novels because its long flashback is not really very well executed; compared to the main plot, it is dull and unconvincing. [b:The Constant Gardener|19000|The Constant Gardener|John le Carré|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348649766s/19000.jpg|1442776] is the best of le Carré's latest phase, leaving this as worth reading for fans.
Oliver Single begins a promising career in the legal department of his father's banking company, only to gradually realise that its fortunes rest on the laundering of money for organised crime. As the company's biggest partnership, with "entrepeneurs" in the disintegrating Soviet Union, takes shape, Oliver makes the fateful decision to betray his father to the authorities. This part of the story is told in flashback; the main plot of Single and Single is about what happens when Oliver's father tracks him down in his new identity supplied by the security services following the murder of one of the bank's employees by the Russians.
Single and Single is not the only le Carré novel to revolve around a complex father-son relationship; in this respect, as in tone and structure, it is reminiscent of [b:The Secret Pilgrim|46462|The Secret Pilgrim (George Smiley, #8)|John le Carré|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1170330461s/46462.jpg|876061]. The moral ambiguity of the characters is also, of course, a trademark of le Carré, and, as in The Secret Pilgrim the imperfections of both father and son fuel not just their relationship but the whole novel. However, Single and Single is prevented from being among the better le Carré novels because its long flashback is not really very well executed; compared to the main plot, it is dull and unconvincing. [b:The Constant Gardener|19000|The Constant Gardener|John le Carré|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1348649766s/19000.jpg|1442776] is the best of le Carré's latest phase, leaving this as worth reading for fans.
The monsters of our childhood do not fade away, neither are they ever wholly monstrous. But neither, in my experience, do we ever reach a plane of detachment regarding our parents, however wise and old we may become. To pretend otherwise is to cheat.
-- John le Carre
I wish I could claim credit for the catchy title/phrase: The spy who came back to the bank., but it has Mr. Moneyball written all over it.
After reviewing [b:Our Kind of Traitor|7839766|Our Kind of Traitor|John le Carré|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347696905s/7839766.jpg|10927705], I kept being drawn back to Single & Single, a le Carré I read last year, but never actually got around to reviewing. Both Single & Single & Our Kind of Traitor are part of le Carré's banking/black-market brand of post-Soviet spy fiction. Certainly not everyone's Jam, but being a finance guy myself, I kinda dig 'em.
Anywho, this is one of those post-Cold War, pre-Iraq war novels where le Carré emerges as not just the grand master of spy fiction, but as perhaps the grand master of both the Cold War and the Ambiguous Thaw. He was noticing in the late 90s what a lot of the rest of us only figured clearly out a few years into the War in Iraq. Those who are guarding the BIG secrets, might not be the most trustworthy people around.
I love how le Carré plays around too. He isn't just angry, he is also clever and confident. Part of me really wants to believe that in the beginning of Single & Single, the gun that both exists and doesn't exist seems like a twist on Chekhov's gun. Let's call it Schrödinger's gun. Ladies and gentlemen of the court, this gun both exists and it doesn't. This gun that shows up in Scene I has already gone off, or perhaps it hasn't. No need for Chekhov no need for Chekhov's gun. Everyone please keep your juried seats. As the big C once said, "One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn't going to go off. It's wrong to make promises you don't mean to keep." During this stage of le Carré's career, it seems like THAT is all he wanted to do. Break promises. Break with the past. Show you the gun, and the write a whole book about ignoring it.
-- John le Carre
I wish I could claim credit for the catchy title/phrase: The spy who came back to the bank., but it has Mr. Moneyball written all over it.
After reviewing [b:Our Kind of Traitor|7839766|Our Kind of Traitor|John le Carré|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347696905s/7839766.jpg|10927705], I kept being drawn back to Single & Single, a le Carré I read last year, but never actually got around to reviewing. Both Single & Single & Our Kind of Traitor are part of le Carré's banking/black-market brand of post-Soviet spy fiction. Certainly not everyone's Jam, but being a finance guy myself, I kinda dig 'em.
Anywho, this is one of those post-Cold War, pre-Iraq war novels where le Carré emerges as not just the grand master of spy fiction, but as perhaps the grand master of both the Cold War and the Ambiguous Thaw. He was noticing in the late 90s what a lot of the rest of us only figured clearly out a few years into the War in Iraq. Those who are guarding the BIG secrets, might not be the most trustworthy people around.
I love how le Carré plays around too. He isn't just angry, he is also clever and confident. Part of me really wants to believe that in the beginning of Single & Single, the gun that both exists and doesn't exist seems like a twist on Chekhov's gun. Let's call it Schrödinger's gun. Ladies and gentlemen of the court, this gun both exists and it doesn't. This gun that shows up in Scene I has already gone off, or perhaps it hasn't. No need for Chekhov no need for Chekhov's gun. Everyone please keep your juried seats. As the big C once said, "One must never place a loaded rifle on the stage if it isn't going to go off. It's wrong to make promises you don't mean to keep." During this stage of le Carré's career, it seems like THAT is all he wanted to do. Break promises. Break with the past. Show you the gun, and the write a whole book about ignoring it.
I am certain now; I am not a fan of John le Carre. The book never grabbed me and it just babbled on and on and on.