Our Game: A Novel

Lest anyone get the wrong impression, let me explain my review headline. I compare this book to a hotdog, because it has a very good story trapped between two pieces of bland bread.
The first hundred or so pages move at a glacial pace, and the author's disjointed manner of storytelling soon becomes confusing and annoying. LeCarre spends a lot of pages to give us a great understanding of the three main players, but I don't know if it is all worth it.
The middle 130-160 pages of the book were much better. The scenes held my attention, the dialogue was marvelous, and I was really concerned about the characters. Then came the last thirty or forty pages. Some nice descriptive work, but it seems as if LeCarre was trying to meet some sort of word-count quota. Overall, a very good book that could have easily been a four-star novel if some of the dead weight would have been cut. I did enjoy witnessing the transformation of the main character, and I think it was handled in a very realistic manner.

In Britain, retired civil servants are typified by life in rural cottages, pottering about in a rose garden and Sundays with The Times. Tim Cranmer doesn't quite fulfill the picture. His "rural cottage" is an inherited spot of land containing a chapel. His rose garden is a struggling vineyard. And Sundays are occupied by visits from his former protege. Instead of a demure wife to complete the picture, Tim's resident lady is half his age and a composer. Hardly the picture of a staid bureaucrat out to pasture. Perhaps all these variations are due to Cranmer being other than a "retired civil servant" - he's a retired spook.

Spies never truly retire. They may distance themselves somewhat from the sharp end, but there are always loose ends left over and old cases that resurrect themselves. The dissolution of the Soviet Union was supposed to put ranks of spies from the West [and John Le Carre] out of work. They were considered poorly adapted to the new conditions. Le Carre and his literary creations have refuted that notion. His "retired" spy becomes enmeshed in a conspiracy of stupendous scope. It seems his protege, who was a double pretending to spy for the Soviets, is involved in an embezzlement - 37 billion BP, to be exact. The money is to finance a war of "national liberation" - a little item of ethnic minorities having faith in their identity. Their location is in the ramparts of the Caucasus Mountains, where loyalties are fierce, but the population scattered. Lacking resources, they seem to have convinced Cranmer's double to help finance weapons' purchases.

Larry Pettifer, Cranmer's long-term protege, is an intellectual. He changes ideologies like his socks. A consummate wheeler-dealer, he duped his Soviet minders for many years. What effect did his most recent case officer have to change him? And where does Tim's resident consort, who disappears mysteriously, fit in to the picture? Emma finds Larry charming, but his flighty personality and behaviour seem inconsistent for a woman yearning for stability. Has she fled from security to embrace adventure? What price will Tim pay to recover her?

The Western powers seek stability as well. Le Carre imparts the view that once the Soviet Empire dissolved, capitalism sought but fresh opportunities for investment. Justice and enterprise are often at odds, the more so when resources like oil or minerals are involved. Le Carre has taken up the cause of justice in all his writings, but his more recent ones speak with a more strident voice. Cranmer is portrayed as a voice of an older generation, quietly pleased that the Soviet Union is moribund. The issues of the post-Soviet East seem remote. Le Carre, with his usual skill, portrays a man drawn in by events beyond his control or his ken. It is easy to sympathise with him. But it is Pettifer's idealism that speaks for Le Carre. Never an ideologue, Le Carre's finely wrought narrative confronts us with our own uncaring self-interest. Capitalism may have triumphed, but the victory isn't without flaws. An excellent read and a tribute to Le Carre's skills in plot and characterisation. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

The subject matter of this smoothly written book is what happens to a double agent after the demise of the Soviet Union and its satellites. At Russia's edges the world is sufficiently tumultuous to engage the emotions and the intellect of such a figure, one of the main characters of Le Carre's novel, Lawrence Pettifer.

The man turns up missing. He fails to show up for the opening lecture in the new semester at the university which employs him, Bath.

It seems that both Larry and Tim Cranmer, his British supervisor, have been made redundant. Nevertheless, Tim Cranmer is questioned by both the police and his own former agency to ascertain Larry's whereabouts.

The interest of the story is the interior monologue of the Cranmer character, building the backstory, undertaking travel in pursuit of both Larry and the truth. This is one of the stronger novels of Le Carre. The tone and the twisted nature of the plot are just about perfect.

I've mainly listened to Le Carre - David Case [or which other name he uses] is the only clunker and should be avoided, much as one avoids kids' television programs [Barney et al]. Listening to a Le Carre book is such a pleasure - as though he writes for the hearing of his prose.

John Franklyn-Robbins is new to me, but what a performance! Pitch perfect for all the characters, no matter how minor their parts are. The story is basic Le Carre, which is a very good deal. Elements of "Absolute Friends" for sure, but they just add to the atmosphere. The character of Emma is the only irritant - she is, in fact, so annoying that at one point I was sure she was the mastermind - the spider who had lured everyone else in. If you can find this one, give yourself time [and a nice bottle of claret] - the recording is old; I found mine via a library sale, on cassettes, if you please.

This is my second LeCarre book (after Mission Song, which I think I liked more). Spy novel, but no James Bond here, too much self analysis for James. But an interesting concept of the spy student instructing the teacher. The spy master, Cranmer, is a middle aged by-the-book practiced spy who had just retired and found a beautiful young girl to love for the first time. Larry, his protege, a devil-may-care, larger-than-life young idealist finds Cranmer again, procedes to steal his girl- irrevocably, and takes off to join the Ingush and fight their Russian oppressors. The rest of the book is about Cranmer searching them out, finding the girl, finding it would never work, because he was not Larry, and going off to find Larry - as a wise old woman told him "you do not want to just find Larry, you want to become him." Turns out to be true - after finally being led to Larry's grave in Ingustia, Cranmer grabs a Kalashnikov and follows the Ingush into battle against the Russians to revenge their dead. This last part added one more star.

I see that LeCarre is going to be like Michener in that I learn a lot about places I may not have known existed - Ingustia? -anyone??

Stylish, well-written and intelligent. So why was I so impatient to finish this book and get on to another one? Because, for me, it's entertainment 'density' was only borderline acceptable. I feel like I've been reading that book for half my life and now I'm finally free - not a good sign. Maybe that's too strong, because I wouldn't say I disliked the book. It just wasn't satifying enough. Tim Cranmer is a boring old man with too much money, a vineyard and a liking for pretensious old jewelry. How can you engage properly with a book narrated by this man? OK, you can feel sorry for him as the life in his life deserts and betrays him, but a whole book with this man gets a bit tedious.

I purchased this book in hard-back off a discount rack. I had never heard of le Carre, although I had seen the motion pictures, "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold," and "The Russia House." I couldn't put it down.

So far, it may be my favorite, although I am torn between it and "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold," and I am now a big fan of George Smiley, since I am working my way through his novels in chronological order.

Read it. READ ALL OF HIS BOOKS, except maybe "The Naive and Sentimental Lover."

A wasted effort from one on the most perceptive minds alive. He dropped his past standards on this book. Only the gems of wisdom about human nature gives it value. An unknown author would have had this book rejected, or at least criticized.

I agree with the following observations taken from other reviewers:

"The story was all over the place and the ending far from satisfying."

"The first hundred or so pages move at a glacial pace, and the author's disjointed manner of storytelling soon becomes confusing and annoying."

"Far too much of the book took place in flashback... vacillating from vague self-pity to vague longing to vague regret and back... Of the three pivotal characters, two are presented almost entirely in flashback."

"Too dense and slow moving... even though the language is always wondrous."

"...novel seems dark and pointless."

"numbing dive into the depths of one man's self-absorption left me gasping for air."

If you are new to Le Carre, read his earlier works first or you may never read them after this work.

As always, Le Carre' approaches a complex and intriguing corner of world politics from the perspective of one who, perhaps, sees too much... The plot is sinuous, and gripping.

With the Cold War fought and won, British spymaster Tim Cranmer accepts early retirement to rural England and a new life with his alluring young mistress, Emma. But when both Emma and Cranmer's star double agent and lifelong rival, Larry Pettifer, disappear, Cranmer is suddenly on the run. He must find his brilliant protege, desperately eluding his former colleagues, in a frantic journey across Europe and into the lawless, battered landscapes of Moscow and southern Russia, to save whatever of his life he has left. The tale leads one to the deep valleys of Caucasian Mountains, toward an ending that can only be described as haunting.

A wasted effort from one on the most perceptive minds alive. He dropped his past standards on this book. Only the gems of wisdom about human nature gives it value. An unknown author would have had this book rejected, or at least criticized.

I agree with the following observations taken from other reviewers:

"The story was all over the place and the ending far from satisfying."

"The first hundred or so pages move at a glacial pace, and the author's disjointed manner of storytelling soon becomes confusing and annoying."

"Far too much of the book took place in flashback... vacillating from vague self-pity to vague longing to vague regret and back... Of the three pivotal characters, two are presented almost entirely in flashback."

"Too dense and slow moving... even though the language is always wondrous."

"...novel seems dark and pointless."

"numbing dive into the depths of one man's self-absorption left me gasping for air."

If you are new to Le Carre, read his earlier works first or you may never read them after this work.

As always, Le Carre' approaches a complex and intriguing corner of world politics from the perspective of one who, perhaps, sees too much... The plot is sinuous, and gripping.

With the Cold War fought and won, British spymaster Tim Cranmer accepts early retirement to rural England and a new life with his alluring young mistress, Emma. But when both Emma and Cranmer's star double agent and lifelong rival, Larry Pettifer, disappear, Cranmer is suddenly on the run. He must find his brilliant protege, desperately eluding his former colleagues, in a frantic journey across Europe and into the lawless, battered landscapes of Moscow and southern Russia, to save whatever of his life he has left. The tale leads one to the deep valleys of Caucasian Mountains, toward an ending that can only be described as haunting.

This was my first spy novel. I started out, finding the setting very intriguing; real spy stuff from secret lairs, alternate identifications, laying false trails. The book takes you across England, and through Europe, only to get you to the end of the book, and find that there was no end. You arrive to find that the characters that you've been chasing are gone, or dead. No climatic endings. No drama. Just done. If you could have a good book without an ending, this one is it.

Not a spy thriller, but a novel about self-absorbed middle-aged men who happen to be former spies. Which is fine, except the book is sold as a thriller, and the blurb is full of praise for the "tension" and "pace". Talk about false advertising! The story really only gets going in the last 70 pages or so, and then it suddenly ends without any resolution.

Even considered as a character study with no pretensions as a spy thriller, this book disappoints. It's far too full of annoying "What-ho old chap" overgrown "public" (i.e. private) schoolboys, and the main characters are totally unsympathetic; Cranmer is a sad sack, Pettifer (encountered only in flashback) is a narcissistic boor, and Emma (likewise only seen in flashback) is a vacuous airhead.

Thirty years ago, Le Carre might have taken this premise and made something worth reading out of it. Once every hundred pages or so, there is a flash of his former skill, which only makes the book more disappointing.

I'm always impressed with the detail and accuracy that Le Carre infuses into his spy novels. Who would have known al this about the little country of Ingushetia? Even more apparent is the real, considering about six months after I read this, Ingushetia and Dagestan snagged some headlines that usually were held for the Chechen rebellion.

Taut and suspenseful, this novel displays Le Carre's unique literary gift for full-blooded characterizations within a plot that keeps the pages turning. Many thrillers make readers choose: either an exciting plot with weak characters (Ludlum) or great characterization and muddled plot (Furst). Here again, Le Carre shows why he is at the top of this difficult genre. We are intrigued by the action and care deeply for the characters, making a compelling book worth a second read.

I can't agree with the negative reviews here -- this is a very powerful book, and relates to current political issues in a way few spy novels really do. One reviewer complains that much of the book is in flashback and that two main characters aren't really present except in that form: that "complaint" gets to the heart what this book is often dealing with -- memory, reevaluation, what the world meant during the cold war and what it means now, etc. Le Carre has better books (Smiley's People and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold may be the masterworks) but this is a very strong work too.

Having read everything LeCarre has published, I found "Our Game" an absorbing, well written thriller, with a rich and complex plot, superb character development, and the pacing we have come to enjoy so much in this author's work. This is not the book to give someone who must complete an important project on time; - they may miss their deadline once they start reading this volume!