Rating: 
Summary: Back to excellence
Review: The very beautiful, much younger wife of a minor British diplomat with the "High Commission" in Nairobi, Kenya, is brutally murdered together with her supposed lover, an African doctor with Belgian citizenship. She had been active on researching about the ill-doings of a giant and powerful multinational company for the distribution and sale in Africa of medications manufactured by a big pharmaceutical concern, all ineffective, or stale, or given with the wrong indications - and she had come a little too close to discovering the truth. The widower, a rather mild and ineffectual man mostly known for his gardening activities, transforms himself into an astute and relentless investigator of the circumstances of his wife's murder and of its perpetrators. His success, against the dirty play of even his immediate superior who's not entirely innocent, takes him to his own death, while the villains remain the victors on the field. A bitter conclusion to a well studied, researched and written novel by the Master who, in the lack of the erstwhile foe the K.G.B., finds the present danger in multinationals and their absolute lack of scruples when it comes to the bottom line. It makes even the most conservative reader look at the "Seattle people" of demonstrators and protesters against "globalization" with a different and less jaundiced eye, even though never condoning their violences. It's hardly believable that one could review a book from his political standpoint ("too much left wing", see the comment immediately preceeding this one, dated July 27)rather than its literary merits. Welcome back, Mr Le Carré, to your known mastery in spinning a tale.
Rating: 
Summary: Well Written but Too Left Wing!
Review: As a loyal Le Carre reader, I was disappointed by his cliched anti-Parmaceutical industry, anti-Big Business bias in this novel. Le Carre is usually so much better at seeing the shades of grey in various issues. Here he falls into left-wing claptrap! I still give it three stars because it IS well-written and iss engaging even when you have to grit your teeth at the "little peole = good; business = THE (evil) MAN"
Rating:
Summary: Rx Mahem
Review: Writers in the small group that include John Le Carre are beyond comment or criticism, as far as their art is concerned; of course the book is beautifully written. The pharma industry portrayed is actually much worse than painted in Constant Gardener, as Le Carre states in his afterword; it is a needful expose. However, characters and plot are weak and lack credibility. You'll read this book because Le Carre wrote it. You'll take the expose, depending on your awareness of the world. But as a story, you may feel you've been given 2% milk where you've learned to expect whole.
Rating: 
Summary: LeCarre' With Depth
Review: I'm a Le Carre' fan, I admit it. I'll read whatever he writes. His early works were longer running and had more character development. I think they were more plot resolution oriented than Constant Gardener.This book has a depth to it that earlier work does not. It is a journey of faith and fidelity by the protaganist in the face of feckless government (a constant LeCarre' theme) and power jaded, conscience-less industry (pharmacuticals). It is his journey from dancing blindly on the edge of reality to facing the truth about evil and good -- the evil of omission: deliberate government ignorance and stonewalling of fact; the evil of commission: fraud, blackmail, coercion, murder, and the deliberate manipulation of powerless people -- the good of seeking and speaking the truth regardless of the cost; the good of being faithful when much conspires against faith; the good of loving another enough to lay one's self on the line. If it is true that "you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." It is also true that to live by the truth has an ultimate pricetag. This book is the story of one man's journey to both of those concepts. This is also a well written love story. The story line is a merging of truth and faithfulness -- faithfulness to what is right and the faithfulness of a man and woman who love each other. LeCarre' affirms two religious concepts -- that faith and love are ultimate and transcendant. The question LeCarre' leaves open is whether there is hope, especially on this side of eternity. As with all LeCarre' novels (and many British spy genre) this is not a fast read. LeCarre' develops plot and resolution slowly and deliberately. I have found him to be faithful in this development if the reader is willing to take the time to enjoy his craftmanship.
Rating:
Summary: The spymaster in top form
Review: A moving love story, an all-too-believable conspiracy, and settings so real you can smell them (Africa, London, Italy, Canada), contribute to the pleasure of Le Carré's latest. But what makes the book a standout is Le Carré's graceful, articulate prose and sharply drawn characters. Le Carré's trademark ability to invest the unspoken with as much meaning as the spoken, to flesh out dialogue with body language and cerebral maneuvering, is in top form here. Although the crumbling of the Cold War sapped the spy novel of its urgency, the faceless, global enormity of corporate intrigue has a chilling power at least its equal and Le Carré taps a rich vein of reader outrage in a novel which explores the complex plight of Africa and the predatory callousness of Western profiteering. In a departure from convention, Le Carré opens his story from the point of view of a secondary character, a high-level British diplomat of exceeding venality. Through Sandy Woodrow we hear of the rape and murder of a diplomatic wife, Tessa Quayle, in the wilds of northern Kenya's bush. Woodrow lusted after Tessa, and paints her as a loose woman, the flighty, much younger wife of a dull, upper-class twit. Her death is certain to inspire tabloid headlines, accompanied as she was by a charismatic, crusading black doctor who has disappeared from the scene. The official version: a scandalous lovers' tryst, tragically beset by bandits. Or, alternatively, the black lover killed the diplomat's wife in a fit of rage and fled. In Woodrow's eyes, Justin Quayle is a hoodwinked, cuckolded, mediocre has-been, too consumed with his constant gardening to control his wife. But just when you're wondering why anyone would want to read about these tiresome, pathetic people, point-of-view shifts to Justin. In his grief, Justin is "groomed and pensive and remote," a silent figure, willing to be misunderstood; despised by Woodrow, romanticized by Woodrow's wretched wife, suspected by the police. "Lesley is accusing him of murder, yet all she gets is a small frown linking him to his inner world." At last, grief getting the better of him, Justin does admit a terrible guilt, but not the husband's rage the police expect. Tessa chose to isolate him from the causes she espoused, he says, to avoid compromising his official position. "She follows her conscience, I get on with my job. It was an immoral distinction. It should never have been made." Leaving Nairobi, Justin determines to shed his baggage and make peace with his wife's death by following in her footsteps, adopting her conscience as his own. He sidesteps official questions about her activities and his knowledge of them, denies any knowledge of a report documenting a grave medical abuse in Kenya. "But he has every idea. It is the terrible time. It is the time when he feared he might have lost her; when her young face grew harder by the day and her young eyes acquired a zealot's light; when she crouched, night after night, at her laptop in her little office, surrounded by heaps of papers flagged and cross-referenced like a lawyer's brief...." Woodrow has seen Tessa's document but Justin doesn't know what he did with it. Justin never saw it. He knows only that it has to do with a corporation called ThreeBees and a powerful new TB drug called Dypraxa; that the death of a village woman in the same slum hospital where Tessa lost her baby inspired Tessa's big crusade. Justin's odyssey takes him to the places where they first met, courted, and loved, reliving their life together. A crusader, a lawyer, a woman of money and privilege, Tessa had strong convictions about love and about law. Calling on the spycraft that surrounded but never engaged him, Justin drops out of sight, covers his tracks, learns to suspect everyone. He studies Tessa's meager written legacy at her beloved family estate on Elba and, using a blend of instinct and detective work, begins reconstructing the missing document - the one he knows cost Tessa her life - to expose a monstrous conspiracy with tentacles that reach into his own diplomatic corp. Le Carré's layered story explores profiteering, expediency, the long reach of corporate behemoths and the corruption of government, but also calls into question the efficacy of exposé which can destroy the good and leave the bad. Justin Quayle emerges as a quiet, methodical, thoughtful man, inspired to feats of courage and conviction by love. Sensitive and astute, he rises to the occasion a true hero.
Rating:
Summary: Unfortunately Accurate
Review: Le Carre is a great storyteller, but the unforunate fact is that this compelling novel is very close to the truth about Africa. Carefully woven into the fabric of the characters and the plot is the tragic reality of this beautiful and dangerous place. I know. I spent two months there last summer. If you really want to get a sense of the place and enjoy a sad but great narrative, read this book.
Rating:
Summary: The plight of the spy novelist
Review: Le Carre deserves a Nobel prize for his spy novels, especially "Tinker Tailor" and "Little Drummer Girl" But the images -- and the villains -- of the Cold War came tumbling down with the Berlin Wall. We've been fortunate in our spy literature. Who could be better bad guys that the Nazis and the Soviets? But old spy novelists have to stretch a little to come up with suitably nefarious villains these days. Le Carre demonizes an evil pharmeceutical company. Mercifully, it's not an American company -- Le Carre is always good at avoiding cliches -- but (of all things) Swiss/Canadian. This may be the first novel in the history of the world to make the Canadians the bad guys. Does it work? Not completely. I can't accept that pharmaceutical companies are the embodiment of evil, driven only by greed to commit unspeakable acts. On the contrary, business executives are only moderately evil -- just like the rest of us. To be a five-star novel, this one needed an argument, a bit of moral ambiguity. The "pharma" company should have had its say; the peerless crusader, Tessa, needed warts -- caught with her hand in the till, or some other repulsive act, while she was doing good.
Rating:
Summary: A real eye-opener
Review: I thoroughly enjoyed this book.Until now,I'd never thought about the terrible danger to underdeveloped countries at the hands of corrupt governments taking huge monetary bribes from unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies who would thus be able to use these unsuspecting,poverty-stricken people as guinea pigs for semi-tested drugs. John Le Carre made me think,and caused me to feel so ashamed that more"civilised"countries could be responsible for the sickness and hideous deaths of these poor,innocent victims,simply to get a drug on the market before anyone else beat them to it. I think that a proof of the integrity of his writing in causing me to forget that I was reading a novel,speaks for itself. I am so impressed with his passion and style that his characters are really irrelevant as I found that the actual story was overshadowed by the cause that he espouses--that of bringing world attention to the power of these huge conglomerates.Thank you,Mr.LeCarre for opening my eyes.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing character study
Review: John Le Carré has written a character study in this novel. The most interesting is Justin Quayle (#1), a timid underling in the British High Commission (character #2) in Nairobi who is content to do his job, keep his head down, and tend his garden. But when Quayle's beautiful young wife is killed fighting a multinational drug company (character #3), the timidity disappears. Although some judicious editing of the evidence uncovered might have allowed the story to move along faster, the topic is timely given the worldwide discussion of drugs for Africa. Most of all, the book is a fascinating story with lots of interesting twists and turns.
Rating:
Summary: The books I used to read.
Review: I forgot how much I enjoy Mr Le Carre!It has been years since I have read anything that big! After having 4 children and working and now raising my grandon I didn't think I had time or energy to read like I used to. Now I don't think I will pick up anything unless it looks as good as this book. I kept rereading paragraphs just because he writes so well. I couldn't wait to wake up in the morning to finish this book. It was superb!
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