[bad word]  [bad word] club16866725

mysterious manuscript purporting to prove the Soviet defense system is unworkable is smuggled out of Moscow. It was intended for a flaky English publisher, a womanizing saxophone-playing boozer, but the smuggler has turned it over to British intelligence. In order to prove its authenticity, they [bad word] the publisher as an amateur spy and send him to Moscow to reestablish contact with the author. But the [bad word]  Barley Blair finds there is love and a purpose for his shambles of a life.

As always with Le Carré, this is [bad word] spy story, a marvelous entertainment that is also as intelligent, witty, and brooding as many more self-consciously and less satisfying literary novels. It may not be the equal of The Quest for Karla trilogy or of a Perfect Spy but it bears all the marks of a master, of the man who has both redefined and reanimated the espionage genre.