A delicately woven plot of political power, personal power, and national pride make a thick blanket behind which the powers of the nation-state operate.

The British embassy in Bonn is depicted as a reflection of the Empire. Each character displayed, pinned to a board as one might an insect collection: to be completely examined and scrutinized for flaws, defects, and identifying characteristics. Perhaps most appealing is not being innundated with detail at the beginning. We find the strings along with Alan Turner, secrutiy expert, wondering where they will lead us. A missing man, Leo Harting, Harting Leo, a German war refugee who returned to his Fatherland, is also a mystery man: spy, patriot, or simply a nobody? Nobody seems to know the same version of the man.

A skillful display of the politics and social up-heaval in early 60s Germany as a mighty nation struggled to determine its own future once again. Le Carrè's experience working in the very same Embassy in the early 60s no doubt provides the truly realistic vision he paints so skillfully with words. The entire profession of diplomacy is not painted in a particularly flattering light - the supremecy of the nebulous national goals reigns over the reality of the individual's life.

As a first taste of his writing, I am eagerly looking forward to more.

This might be Le Carre's most ambitious and best written book. It contains a host of well drawn characters and the clever plotting typical of all Le Carre's best work. As with his other good books, Le Carre uses the spy novel format to investigate matters well beyond the usual formulas of thrillers. This book is set in Bonn, in the late 50s or early 60s. Almost all the action takes place within the British embassy. The latter is depicted as a microcosm of British society, with its class, ethnic, and religous divisions, its repressions and emphasis on maintaining British prestige. This book is an allegory and devastating critique of British national policy in that period. Le Carre shows the insularity of British society, its inability to deal with reduction to a second-rate military and economic power, and its preference for preferring shabby deals maintaining British prestige to concrete achievements.

A fascinating plot, with characteristically rich character development. Even the minor players are drawn carefully, in, well, loving detail (the British ambassador's wife with the lovely arms (a la T.S. Eliot), the diplomat-asthete with the harpsichord he never quite gets around to playing, the Dutch diplomat who cruelly points out the historical inaccuracies in a guest's dinner polemic, etc. The end has a rather grand twist that causes the whole thing to linger in the mind for weeks after, like the "Spy Who Came in from the Cold". One of my favorite 20th century novels period.

This book follows Call for the Dead, but is more of a murder mystery than a spy novel. There are surprises as the truth is uncovered, layer by layer, but ultimately, the story is not as compelling as his other works. Very little light is shed on the Smiley character.

So John LeCarre can write as good a murder mystery as the rest of the lot over there in Great Britain. At least he's not as precious and smug as most of them. And he uses the beloved Smiley, instead of trying to come up with some new (yawn) Scotland Yard detective. Still, it's not his best stuff. I mean, it's good, don't get me wrong. Better, as I said, than most, but I like the spy stuff the best, and The Tailor f Panama is brilliant and hysterically funny...more sophisticated. Anyway - you won't be disappointed.

A Murder of Quality is the second of LeCarre's novels that feature George Smiley. Unlike the others in the series this novel is not about the Cold War and espionage, at least not overtly. In this one; a woman with whom Smiley worked during the war contacts him. She publishes a small Christian paper and has a subscriber who fears that she will be murdered. Smiley investigates and eventually finds the murderer. It is a classic murder story but not a spy story or is it? I did find myself wondering why the paper was kept in business by the owners. Is it owned by British intelligence? There might be more to this murder mystery than meets the eye or perhaps not.

Smiley has to solve a murder and also face his wife's past. It's ironic that the basically decent and brilliant Smiley is considered unsuitable for his higher class but serially unfaithful wife. LeCarre includes much social comment about Britain as he leads Smiley to the solution of the crime.

Things are not what they seem and Smiley's investigations lead to truly nasty revelations. The twists, turns and betrayal that are LeCarre constants are present in A Murder of Quality. The reader gets to see the author as he is developing his craft.

A Murder of Quality is a murder mystery and perhaps LeCarre was considering pursuing this genre. Instead he reinvented the spy story incorporating seaminess and betrayal. A Murder of Quality shows us how deep his talents as a writer are.

This book is not for everyone-- actually it is not for most people. If you are not very interested in the work of John Le Carre, this book is certainly not for you-- which is to be expected. If you are a fan of Le Carre, however, this book is probably not for you either. The book encompasses Le Carre's entire body of work, engaging in in-depth analysis of many topics from ambiguous morality to skeptical balance and using examples from many novels to support others. If you have not read all of Le Carre's work, and are planning on reading more, you may find yourself upset when crucial plot points are casually revealed. The main audience for this book are those who have read close to every Le Carre novel and are looking for more academic analysis of certain characters and points-- or, of course, students who wish to use the book as reference only. Content-wise, the book provides many insights into more subtle points of Le Carre's style, and is useful as a reference source (including a very organized index and an alphabetical list of characters with descriptions and appearances). The writing style is somewhat pedantic at times, but generally very readable (though at times it comes off as term-paper-ish). On the whole, it is a book that is quite good, if only for a very small portion of the reading public.

Frequently the blurbs on book jackets have little relevance to the actual contents of the book, but this is not the case with Myron Aronoff's "The Spy Novels of John le Carre: Balancing Ethics and Politics". On the back cover, Wilson Carey McWilliams of Rutgers University states, "Aronoft's analysis is worthy of George Smiley: careful, relentless and desperately shrewd, with an eye for subtle relationships and connections, invariably probing below the appearances." I don't think I can improve upon McWilliams's words.

There is no doubt from the very first paragraph of the preface that Aronoff has embarked on an earnest, thoughtful examination of le Carre's espionage fiction, covering all the novels from "Call for the Dead" through "The Tailor of Panama"(but excluding "The Naive and Sentimental Lover"). He performs a methodical analysis, book by book, of le Carre's recurring themes and character types, relating these to the liberal humanism which he considers - correctly, I believe - to be the core of le Carre's view of the world. Make no mistake about it: this is a book with serious intent, not a breezy light survey of a favorite author's works, filled with frothy anecdotes.

Aronoff is a professor of political science and anthropology and, he tells us in the preface, the genesis of this book was in university seminars which then led to a paper about le Carre that he presented before the American Political Science Association. Although careful reading is at times demanded by the academic timbre of some of the text (he discusses how "le Carre emphatically rejects predetermined doctrines that offer noncontextualized set formulas"), Professor Aronoff's analysis is far from being a barren exercise in arcane literary theory. Everything is specifically grounded in le Carre's own words, with Aronoff's observations directly connected to the incidents and characters he cites. Numerous interviews given by le Carre over the years are a rich source of pertinent information. What emerges from this meticulous study is a perceptive portrait of a master author and his works. Moreover, the relationship of le Carre's fiction to the real Intelligence world is discussed at length, with a strong case made for his novels being genuine instruments of political education. Lastly, a handy appendix is provided to describe the "Dramatis Personae", the main characters who inhabit the tales.

Already the pages of my copy of "The Spy Novels of John le Carre" are covered with highlighted sentences and paragraphs, many containing keen insights new to me. To my way of thinking,Aronoff has captured the essence of who le Carre is and what he has accomplished. I will not attempt to summarize the book's conclusions here, other than saying that a reader should come away with a greatly enhanced appreciation of le Carre's focus upon ambiguity, skepticism and balance. Instead, I will simply encourage anyone sincerely interested in John le Carre's espionage fiction to read this book. It belongs on the bookshelf right alongside "Smiley's People" and "A Perfect Spy".

Myron Aronoff has done this British novelist's followers a great service. By pursuing Le Carre, the man, Aronoff gives the reader a clear image of a political moralist for our times. The pursuit is dominated by the efforts of Carre's main character, George Smiley, and his fascination for ambiguity and ambivalence in secret political work. The purpose of the book is a neat criticism of contemporary politicians wherever they advocate closed-minded nationalism, self-destructive patriotism and murderous deception. Generally speaking this book is a fine contribution to the use of literature to political discourse; and, in particular, it has a most valuable appendix of major characters in Le Carre's novels. This is a perfect gift for Le Carre buffs.

At his best John le Carre transcends the genre. His Quest for Karla trilogy (Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, and Smiley's People) and A Perfect Spy are marvellous novels, with deftly drawn complex characters, and a fine sense of the reasons for betrayal.

This, though, is disappointing. It is le Carre's first post glasnost fiction, and in feeling for new subject matter his novels have seemed a little weaker, until finding new form with his most recent novel, Single and Single.

The novel focuses on Barley Blair, a drunken book publisher from a small publishing house in London. Having applied for a place in the secret service some years before, Blair becomes a reluctant spy as a book with observations on Soviet military capability is handed over for Blair at an audio book convention. The novel is narrated by a wily lawyer advising the British secret service.

There are some weak points in the novel. For this reader le Carre has never convinced when drawing female characters (even the estimable Lady Ann Smiley remains a cipher from le Carre's first novel to Smiley's People). Nor is le Carre convincing when writing about love, and here one of the pivotal characters is Katya, a Muscovite with children. She is better drawn than many of le Carre's female characters (perhaps the first person male narrative strangely helps in this regard), but she remains something of a blank canvas. Her relationship with Blair is never convincing, and sadly this taints the inevitability of the final chapters.

There are the usual le Carre virtues. He has a mastery of novel openings (Witness the first chapters of Tinker Tailor and Single and Single for example) and this is no exception. In attendance at an audio book fair in MOscow a Polish emigre is approached and handed the crucial papers for Blair. How this is done, and how he deals with it, are handled wonderfully. Each detail making the situation credible. Le Carre's own style is again wonderful. His prose has a fluidity that is very readable.

Le Carre also has astute observations on the relationship between the superpowers at the time of Gorbachev's restructuring, and - from the backdrop of the Smiley novels - the relationship between the United States and United Kingdom secret services.

It is ironic that in a novel billed as a love story the most convincing relationships are those between institutions.

If you enjoy the novel try to get hold off the BBC audio dramatisation starring Tom Baker as Barley Blair. The other le Carre novels mentioned in this review are more rewarding than the Russia House, but it is still an enjoyable, albeit disappointing, read.

Firstly, one does not pick up a John Le Carre book to be dazzled with the flash-bang imagery of modern spy thrillers. John Le Carre writes 'spy literature', a look at the inner workings and emotions felt by his well fleshed-out characters in the espionage trade. Like meeting a life-long friend for the first time, you come to know his characters, and if patient enough, actually care about them. His prose often borders on poetry.

I offer this warning of style for the sake of saving time for those looking for a quick pulse-quickening read. On to my opinion of "The Russia House". Barley Blair, the inner hypocrite comes clean. The book is an in depth tale of how a lackluster publisher with a penchant for self-destruction and jazz finds himself deeply embroiled in the hopeful defection of a Russian scientist, Goethe. Blair bumps into Goethe at a chance gathering during the hopeful glimmer of glasnost. Goethe overhears Blair's recited philosophical rhetoric for a hopeful future between the West and Communist Russia. The conspiracy begins.

Le Carre steers us through how a communique meant for Blair is intercepted, where essentially we begin our journey. We are led through London, Moscow, an island off the coast of New England, and Leningrad in the attempt to confirm Blair in his new job of spy and get the elusive scientist to switch sides. However, Blair wasn't expecting to fall in love with Goethe's emmisary, and a whole new tasteful spin is added to the spy novel. Le Carre's characters here are equally intimate and distant, illuminating yet shrouded in secrecy...so very human. So, not to spoil the intricacies for the eager reader, I shall conclude explaining the plot here.

Through all of this, Le Carre gives us a glimpse of life for both the Westerners and Easterners in Communist Russia. The lingering shadows of Stalin and Breshnev are never dismissed lightly, but rather the hope that was glasnost shines on through the murky depths of intrigue.

Fans of the George Smiley books may find themselves disappointed with reading "The Russia House", but I think fans of Le Carre as the storyteller and writer will be very satisifed.

John Le Carre has the gift of storytelling. To me, he is the best espionage writer alive today. Most of the espionage writers put all the emphasis on the events whereas the main theme of Le Carre's books has always been characters. Le Carre does not write breakneck thrillers. He writes characters, lively and human. And that's why when you read a Le Carre book, a year down the road, you can't recall the story but you can easily recall the characters of the story. He is the creator of many memorable characters and Barley Blair is one of them.

Barley is not a hero, not even a patriot. He is a careless publisher, a jazz player and a chess fan. He is not a spy. He is pushed into the espionage game because of his drunken exchange of thoughts with a Russian scientist, another of Le Carre's memorable characters. Barley has reluctantly agreed to play the part of a courier and agent-runner by British spymasters and on his arrival in Moscow, he falls in love with a girl, who very much like Barley himself, is pushed into the spy game.

Barley soon reaches a point where he has to decide whom to betray. The girl he loves or his country. To me, that is the climax of the novel, the classical dilemma.

And dilemma it is. Here is Barley Blair, the main character, forming one part of the triangle, who is not a spy, doesn't even want to be one. The second part of triangle is Goethe, the Russian scientist, who wants to tell something to the world but not through the spies. And the third part is Katya, loved by both Goethe and Barley, who doesn't even know what is she doing and where does she fit in the whole scheme of things. And in the background are the spymasters of UK and USA who think they have all the strings in their hands but have totally ignored the fact that human nature is an essential part of all the espionage equations.

You've got to read the novel to know the whole thing. And if you are into serious fiction, you must read "The Russia House".

Memo to self: books I listen to in the car should not have

- a complex plot (because if I miss something I'm out of luck)

- a wealth of detail (because it makes the book just too slow-moving)

Unfortunately, this book has both, which drastically limited my appreciation of it. It didn't help, either, that Muller reads with a fast, low, conspiratorial tone, which is appropriate to the book but makes it very hard to hear when driving at the speed limit on I-95.

That being said, LeCarré does a great job of giving one an inside feel of the espionage trade, and he has well-drawn characters. But I think to do the book justice I'd have to read the text rather than having it read to me. Too many times I just didn't understand what was going on or else I let my mind wander as someone's facial expression was described in excruciating detail.