Recommended Reads: A Most Wanted Man, by John le Carre

A sobering if not worrying read. Gripping in the usual le Carré manner with believable ‘nasties’ doing their establishment jobs, in-fighting for personal prestige, group prestige and with nowhere an ethic to be seen. Ethics are for outsiders and underdogs of course. Set this time in Hamburg, port of illegal immigration, it focuses on intrigue involving manipulation of the Islamic ‘terror’ scene to cover up the entirely up-to-date huge business of carpet-bagging, East-West (Europe of course), and contents laundering; never mind ‘class’ upper or lower, money glue sticks anywhere, nor the suffering of the little people. Without the little people there would no scabrous political causes and no-one to get in the way. Le Carré is cross and doesn’t mind showing it. Bravo to an octogenarian writer with his finger truly on the pulse, racing with a fast-moving passionate script curbed only by the background beat of bitter realism. After watching Channel 4’s “Oligarts” nothing surprises.

Posted by Maggie Goren