"As my journey through the pharmaceutical jungle progressed, I came to realize that, by comparison with the reality, my story was as tame as a holiday postcard." - John Le Carré, in the afterword.Tessa Quayle was a diplomat’s wife on a social justice mission, who struggled to be taken seriously by the proper authorities. She was a slight annoyance to her husband’s colleagues at the High Commission in Nairobi… until she is found, murdered by Lake Turkana, her driver decapitated and her confidant

“Drugs have got to be tried on somebody, haven't they?” If I had to come up with just one word to describe this genre-defying book, it would be “angry”. Or maybe two words - angry and disillusioned. Or, if you want a third, then angry, disillusioned and bleak. And that’s where its strength is. “Issue one: the side effects are being deliberately concealed in the interest of profit. Issue two: the world's poorest communities are used as guinea pigs by the world's richest. Issue three: legitim

“She had witnessed a monstrous injustice and gone out to fight it. Too late, he too had witnessed it. Her fight was his.”I hate to say it, but I’m not a big fan of thrillers. I apologize to my thriller-loving friends. As long as you’re happy with them, my opinion counts for diddly-squat. I'm not typically drawn to fast-paced action in my reading life. I'm a characters, reflective reading kind of gal. However, if thrillers were all written in the style of John le Carré, I would happily join the r...

Let me begin by saying that this book is not just a thriller! It is much more than that. In the guise of a thriller the novel tells the story of how money and power can crush the voices of the good people who try to fight injustice.The story begins with a scene in the British High Commission in Nairobi, Kenya. The Head of Chancery, Sandy Woodrow, is informed about the murder of Tessa Quayle – a humanitarian and wife of a British diplomat, Justin Quayle, posted in the High Commission.Justin is ou...

“The most peaceble people will do the most terrible things when they're pushed.” ― John le Carré, The Constant Gardener I have been a little reluctant to read le Carré's post-Cold War, post-Smiley novels. Part of my reluctance was borne of some false assumption that le Carré's masterpieces were mostly weighted towards the front end of his brilliant career. 'The Constant Gardener' blew all my assumptions up. It is amazing how le Carré can write such a masterful novel and such a popular book. Man...

The Constant Gardener is the perfect title for this novel in that it's a double entendre that describes two important aspects of Justin, our titular “constant gardener.” He was brought up to join the ''family firm,'' as his father called the Foreign Office, and he has cultivated the image of ''a sweet chap passionately interested in nothing except phlox, asters, freesias and gardenias.'' Justin gardened “constantly, in one sense, as an escape from a world he viewed as very dark: ’'Man was vile a...

I love John le Carré! That is all.

So far, out of all the LeCarre books that I have read at this point, this has been one of my favourites. It was a very heart wrenching story that featured a journey. And that journey was a man discovering how much his late wife truly loved him. And the work she was partaking in that she kept hidden from him. Going through this journey he loved her even more.It was also a novel of intrigue and espionage based around the pharma industry in Africa.Try and find a copy of this incredible story.

(Buddy read with Nataliya)The paradox of this book, which mostly concerns death, is that the author brought a large number of characters vividly to life in order to tell it. The characters of Tessa, Justin, Sandy, Gloria, Ghita, Lara, Sir Kenny and even minor characters who occupy but a few pages (Ham, the pilot McKenzie, etc) are clearly etched as separate, distinct entities that I will have a very hard time forgetting. One character is presented only as a voice over a 2-way radio, but the good...

Despite the fact that the plot held little or no surprises for me, I still enjoyed The Constant Gardener immensely. I found it an interesting read, mostly on the strength of its writing and character portrayal. Quite early on, I realized that I can predict pretty much everything, the themes as well as the events that were to take place, but as it happens, it didn't bother me that much. I didn't predict the ending precisely, but I imagined something along the lines of it. A fitting ending for thi...

What a tedious read!! This book was about 300 pages too long. The topic should have been interesting but LeCarre found a way to make it boring. I also watched the movie in the hopes that it would improve my opinion of the book. Didn't work.

One of the reviewers on Amazon complained that this book had little to do with gardening. Good grief! I think Le Carre has made the transition from Cold War spy novels to contemporary issue thrillers quite handsomely. In this book, he really goes after the pharmaceutical companies, accusing them not only of unethical practices using Africans as guinea pigs, but also suggests they would kill anyone whom might deign to challenge their unholy hegemony.It's also truly a great love story. The relatio...

A story of tragedy and intrigue that unfolds from the first page to the last, The Constant Gardener is an incredible story of love and loyalty. Justin Quayle is a quiet, reserved man, necessarily conservative in his behavior as befits a British diplomat, while his wife Tessa can barely restrain her zeal for reforming a corrupt system where the victims are poor women and children.Justin had always stayed out of the activist part of Tessa's life. And she had always protected him and his diplomatic...

My previous reading of le Carré has been limited to his political thrillers. This book is in some regards quite different, although I'd have to say that overall it does carry the same sensibility.The enemy in this book is Big Pharma, and Africa is the land under attack. A multi-national is ruthlessly testing an anti-tuberculosis drug with lethal side-effects, especially for pregnant women, on impoverished native populations. Their objective is to work out the kinks quickly without bothering with...

Like most John Le Carre film adaptions I’ve seen, the Constant Gardener is a good one. In fact i don’t believe I’ve experienced a bad Ralph Fiennes or Rachel Weisz film so congrats on the casting choices.The plot isn’t the usual cold war/international spy story like his novels of the past. The Constant Gardener is set in Kenya and follows the fall out of the murder of Tessa Quayle, the activist wife of British Diplomat, Justin Quayle. What initially appears to be a thoughtless murder soon turns

I've not read this author before, but was enticed to listen to this one based on a GR friend enjoying it, even though she and I don't typically read "thrillers". She was right in her description of this as not so much a thriller as a complex shell game intrigue. It meanders more than gallops, but that suited my mood just fine.A story that gives you interesting characters, a well-written plot, and food for thought as a murder is unwrapped within the smarmy soup of politics, pharmaceutical greed,

I made rapid progress through this long book thanks to an intriguing plot, empathy with the protagonists, a serious socio-political backdrop and plenty of interesting peripheral characters.Le Carre has been very careful to make Tessa and her husband Justin humble, passionate and self-effacing, since the role of White Saviour in Africa is, to say the least, problematic. Tessa is almost beyond reproach, and the book was overly morally comfortable for me with its predictably ignorant, self-interest...

***2018 Summer of Spies*** So its summer, finally and at last, here in the Great White North. It’s time for some summer fun reading about espionage! This is my first venture into Le Carré’s work and I enjoyed it.I had expected a rather light & frothy thriller and instead I got a serious examination of big pharma—its use of the unfortunate as test subjects and its desire to put profit well ahead of human kindness. Also explored is the nature of colonialism in Kenya, reminding me a bit of The P

In the 60’s I distinctly remember reading two of the authors earlier books, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and the Looking Glass War. With no pun intended I read them in a small town in Germany, a town located not too far distant from where the fictitious events of the stories took place. They were really good books.Returning to him some 40 years later proved, for me, something of a disappointment. There is only a fleeting reference to gardening so horticulturist need not get their hopes up b...

My first impression of the book was not good. The beginning was slow, and seemed like something my Dad might read; something mundane and unoriginal with cheap thrills. I kept on though, and soon found myself completely enthralled. I could not have been more wrong. Not only does The Constant Gardener deliver clever suspense and thrills, but it also has a strong emotional pull. The strongest part of the book is probably its intelligent and complex plot which involves major pharmaceutical companies...