A Delicate Truth by John le Carre

A Delicate Truth (The Penguin John le Carre Hardback Collection)

by John le Carre

'With A Delicate Truth, le Carre has, in a sense, come home. And it's a splendid homecoming . . . Satisfying, subtle and compelling' The Times

A counter-terror operation, codenamed Wildlife, is being mounted in Britain's most precious colony, Gibraltar. Its purpose: to capture a high-value jihadist arms-buyer. Its authors: an ambitious Foreign Office Minister, and a private defence contractor who is also his close friend. So delicate is the operation that even the Minister's Private Secretary, Toby Bell, is not cleared for it.

Three years later, when the horrifying truth behind Operation Wildlife is uncovered, Toby will be forced to choose between his conscience and his duty to the Service. If the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing, how can he keep silent?

'A brilliant climax, with sinister deaths, casual torture, wrecked lives and shameful compromises' Observer

'This is writing of such quality that - as Robert Harris put it - it will be read in one hundred years' Daily Mail

'Perhaps the most significant novelist of the second half of the twentieth century in Britain' Ian McEwan

Reviewed by Lianne on

3 of 5 stars

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I won an ARC of this novel through Chapters Indigo/the publishers on Twitter. A Delicate Truth is John le Carre's latest novel and it very much showcases le Carre's writing and narrative style, the quiet but tense story that unfolds carefully amidst a lot of meetings and second-guessing (who’s lying? who’s telling the truth?). However I found the ending of the novel to be a bit of a letdown; it felt too open-ended, which would've worked in a cinematic format but here I would've appreciated a more decisive conclusion or unfolding.

Overall, however, I greatly enjoyed this novel and would recommend it to fans of le Carre's works and fans of the espionage/thriller genre. My complete review of the novel was originally posted at eclectictales.com: http://www.eclectictales.com/blog/2013/05/01/review-a-delicate-truth/

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  • Started reading
  • 26 April, 2013: Finished reading
  • 26 April, 2013: Reviewed