The Night Manager (The Penguin John le Carre Hardback Collection)

by John le Carre

In The Night Manager, John le Carré's first post-Cold War novel, an ex-soldier helps British Intelligence penetrate the secret world of ruthless arms dealers.

'Le Carré is the equal of any novelist now writing in English' Guardian

'A marvellously observed relentless tale' Observer

At the start of it all, Jonathan Pine is merely the night manager at a luxury hotel. But when a single attempt to pass on information to the British authorities - about an international businessman at the hotel with suspicious dealings - backfires terribly, and people close to Pine begin to die, he commits himself to a battle against powerful forces he cannot begin to imagine.

In a chilling tale of corrupt intelligence agencies, billion-dollar price tags and the truth of the brutal arms trade, John le Carré creates a claustrophobic world in which no one can be trusted.

'Complex and intense ... page-turning tension' San Francisco Chronicle

'When I was under house arrest I was helped by the books of John le Carré ... they were a journey into the wider world ... These were the journeys that made me feel that I was not really cut off from the rest of humankind' Aung San Suu Kyi

'One of those writers who will be read a century from now' Robert Harris

• ISBN10: 0141393017
• ISBN13: 9780141393018
• Publish Date: 7 November 2013 (first published 20 June 1993)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Penguin Classics
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 480
• Language: English

Reviews

[pamela]

I often try to get into le Carré, but find myself getting bored, so I must admit I am definitely not the target audience for The Night Manager, but as a book club pick, I was obliged to read it.

To start off, I was definitely enticed by the quality of le Carré's writing. The open scenes of hotel politics and funny anecdotes about guests almost won me over. But ultimately, The Night Manager is overwritten, outdated, and just not that interesting. It felt like a historical artefact (which is how I had to approach it some of the time just to deal with the way that le Carré writes his women) - an object of the 90s that even then harked back to a post-Cold War era style that appeals mainly to Boomers and men who view women as nothing more than objects of desire.

The plot took almost 200 pages to get going, and then once it was over, it felt like le Carré got bored and just wrapped everything up as quickly as possible, plot threads be damned. It meant the whole book felt wholly unsatisfying. There were some interesting moments of characterisation (for the men), but it wasn't enough to keep me interested.

The Night Manager gets three stars for the quality of the writing alone, but I definitely didn't have fun with it.