Awful. Boring. Senseless. 0 of 10 stars

Agent Running in the Field is the latest book from one of my favorite British authors, John le Carre. It was as sharp as all of his previous espionage novels, and one just needs to hang on for a lot of thrilling twists and turns, but I promise that it will make sense as we see all of these disparate threads come together in such a satisfying ending. You must just trust that John le Carre is a master storyteller and he will bring us all along in a most dramatic way. It is a very contemporary plot...

Great read, another classic Le Carre. So classic indeed that it would be refreshing to see him depart from his bog-standard (middle class) individual-against-the-establishment spy drama from time to time. At least this one has a relatively happy ending for a change. And as usual, his portrayal of the civil service as largely populated by incompetent fawning careerists who don't hesitate to shit on the few members of staff who actually do something strikes a chord with me.Having said that, it is,...

”I possess a rugged charm and the accessible personality of a man of the world. I am in appearance and manner a British archetype, capable of fluent and persuasive argument in the short term. I adapt to circumstance and have no insuperable moral scruples. I can be irascible and am not by any means immune to female charms. I am not naturally suited to deskwork or the sedentary life, which is the understatement of all time. I can be headstrong and do not respond naturally to discipline. This can b...

At the age of eighty-eight, there is no doubt that the John Le Carre that I revere is fully present. The narrative voice employed in this novel is fantastic, as we follow a middle-aged spy who has come in from abroad and is stationed in a dead-end job in London (think a more serious version of Mick Herron's Slough House). And interesting questions are raised about what loyalty to country means in the age of Brexit and Trump. But Le Carre does not hit a home run with every book; the story told he...

Maestro of written word... Ingredients of this spy novel are all current goings on... It's hard to be objective for someone who has been his Serbian editor for years... Pure spy novel pleasure mixed with lingustic pleasure...

John le Carre is one of those authors that I have been reading for years, and spy novels he offers stay with me for many years. I have not read all of his books but those which I have I can still remember rather well. 'Agent Running in the Field' is very much in le Carre's writing style and storytelling. The nuances and niceties cannot be presented better if you are looking for a novel telling you about the art (?) of spying and at the same time you are interested in human nature. The fragility

"Nothing endures that is not fought for."- John le Carré , Agent Running in the FieldOK Boomer.First, amazement. I can't believe JlC is still writing great fiction at 88. There are several writers who I feel the weight of time heavy on (John le Carré, John McPhee, and Robert Caro). They all happen to be some of my favorite writers ever, so anytime one of them writes something new it is like oxygen on my reading fire. This novel feels a bit like the 3rd* major interation of le Carré. His first n...

If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.Englishness: "Agent Running in the Field" by John le CarréAfter more than 10 years attending the British Council I feel only half English now at best and even that is waning. The other half I associate with things like football hooliganism, small mindedness, nationalism, old white blokes spouting shite in decaying working men's clubs, establishment rabble rousers and middle England (those have always been very English things, and I pro...

I love John le Carré. I love his voice. I love his people. I love his nuance. I love his wisdom. I love his subtle humour. I love his moral outrage. I love his books.I loved this book too and was entirely gripped by it for as long as it took to read it. So, as I love all his work, does this one really rate five whole stars? Perhaps not; not for any lapse in quality, but it is a slighter book and while I understood the rather abrupt ending, it left me wanting more.So the final star, which should

The Camel’s-Back Syndrome Democracy is inherently amoral; certainly more so than dictatorships which tend to have rigid codes of behaviour and predictable (if often unpleasant) relationships. Nothing about a democratic society is stable or reliable. That’s it’s hidden cost, which from time to time unhides itself in phenomena like Trump and Brexit. The Catholic Church recognised this explicitly in a string of 19th century encyclicals that have never been taken off the books. Agent Running in the...

One of the worst JlC books I've read. More of a rant against Trump and Brexit, not that I'm for either of them, but I didn't pick up this book to be treated of a further dose of Twitter.The tradecraft is too shallow and the end too open ended to be of any satisfaction.

I hate the stars. Always ignore them and read the review instead. This is vintage LeCarre, so for his longtime fans and readers (count me among them), it's a good read. But one of the things LeCarre always does is what I call taking no prisoners in his books. What I mean by this is that he has a tendency to throw an enormous cast of characters at you with the expectation that you will remember them. Your choice is either to keep a list or continue to flip back to recall who each person is. Or yo...

Much has been made about this novel--set in 2018--being John le Carré's Brexit and Trump novel, and the fury with which it was written. And, while that is true to a certain extent, and even plays a crucial role in the plot, it isn't a scathing polemic on the matter. What I believe will happen is left-leaning reviewers will praise it, and right-leaning reviewers will condemn it, solely on political grounds. What you won't be hearing in all the hubbub, though, is a lot of praise for its literary m...

I finished this book last night and went to bed thinking about it and woke up thinking about it and it's been a while since a book made me think this long or this hard. It reminds me of Robert Heinlein's novella "If This Goes On." Heinlein's novella is more of a prequel to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale but Le Carre's novel is the same kind of "if this goes on this is what happens next."Le Carre is looking at Trump and Brexit through the eyes of spies and if this goes on what happens next...

I tend to rate books by my favourite authors a bit more harshly than usual, so a le Carré 3* is probably worth a 4* by another author. As with the rest of his oeuvres, I devoured this quickly and relished that JlC brand of intrigue bubbling under the surface. That said, I felt that this book ultimately fell short in a number of aspects. There were moments of greatness: enjoyable tradecraft, simmerings of wider conspiracies and twisty-turny character motivations that kept you guessing. But I don'...

After a slightly slow start, this turns around at about the 50% mark and suddenly becomes utterly gripping - in a I-can't-sleep-till-I've-finished-this kind of way. And when I say 'slow' about the start, I mean slow in a good way, not dull and crawling. We're no longer in Smiley's world and while some of the old skool types are still around, The Office (no longer The Circus) is far more inclusive (to some extent): we have female Florence, our narrator has a Guardian-reading lawyer/activist wife,...

John le Carré is one of those authors who’s work I recognize by name and reputation only. I know he writes spy novels, starting with his Cold War espionage thrillers featuring George Smiley. I know he was a former British intelligence officer before switching to writing full-time. I know many of his books have been adapted into miniseries and film. I also know he’s really old. For the sake of this review I looked it up: he’s 88.While probably not the book most le Carré fans would recommend start...

3.5 ☆ rounded up Sometimes in life you get caught for sins you haven’t committed. After spending more than half his life abroad in service of his Queen, Nat returns home to the UK. At age 47, Nat is nearing his expiration date as an agent runner for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, aka the Office. I adapt to circumstances and have no insuperable moral scruples. I can be irascible and am not by any means immune to female charms. I can be headstrong and do not respond naturally to

With everything that’s going on in our world today, it’s hard to imagine anyone being able to put together a great spy story that takes it all in. But, of course, John Le Carré is up to the task. He gives us a mid-life agent who thinks he’s semi-retired, except he’s not. Instead he has to take on the task of running a slightly off-kilter enclave in London that’s about to get itself into very hot water. Nat and his wife Prue, plus energetic devotee Florence, are about to follow the angry Ed down