Rating: 
Summary: Dude, where's my Le Carré?
Review: What oh what has happened to my favourite author, the creator of such Cold War literary gems as "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold", "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and "The Russia House"? Instead of the wonderfully complex humanist George Smiley, in "Absolute Friends" we are now presented with one-dimensional characters such as the hapless Ted Mundy and cartoon villain Jay Rourke. Rather than the tightly-woven plots of his earlier books, we now have rambling storylines that barely mesh. And in place of the morally ambiguous universe that made his earlier novels so compelling, we are now given the didactic dreck and leftist political clichés of Le Carré's newly-acquired weltanschauung. A deeply disappointing book.
Rating:
Summary: Stunning Disappointment - A Waste of Time
Review: You begin reading this book and hope it will get better...but it doesn't. It becomes so painful that you simply can't give up out of sheer hope it will improve. The only reason it is a page-turner is because you can't believe how bad it is.The story is extremely weak, the characters bland and stale, and the timing is horrific. Le Carre could have spared us all 350 pages of bland writing and wasteful detail, to instead write a short-story of this work. LeCarre had an opportunity to make a statement about many things related to terrorism: it's foundations in a person, events leading to becoming one, how countries deal with and seek to turn the tide. But he doesn't. LeCarre wastes all his time bouncing back and forth, all over the map with his characters, creating a void of any substance. "Absolute Friends" is an absolute waste of time. Do not bother.
Rating:
Summary: how have the mighty fallen
Review: Lecarre fall from the pantheon of great writers has been sudden and suprising. This book is unbelieveable boring. As you may know this novel is vehemently anti-war, but that is not its downfall. No matter hat his position on the war, that was not the reason for my poor rating. This book is weak, no character development and no excitement. It plods along like a snow monster in a blizzard. With 3 straight disappointments, maybe Lecarre should step aside for a newer generation of spy authors.
Rating: 
Summary: Absolutely a Terrifically Thrilling Story
Review: Ted Mundy was a mid level British spy during the Cold War years, never at the top of the game, always a servant who did his job. He was the kind of spy who never had a need to know. So when the Berlin Wall came down his services were no longer needed and he began wandering through job after job, till he finally winds up in Germany sans family, living with a Turkish mistress and her child and working as a comedic tour guide of German castles Then one day Sasha, friend from his leftist youth, shows up on one of his tours. Sasha introduces Munday to a mysterious moneyman ready to finance schemes to make a world terrified by terrorism a better place, if Mundy's ready to take a few chances once again and of course he is. Sasha, the best friend Munday has ever had, is a smooth talking, charismatic, failure of a revolutionary and from the beginning the pair are unwitting pawns in someone else's game. What that game is, and why they have been recruited for it is the question that will keep you glued to the book, weather or not you agree with Mr. Le Carré's politics. Mr. Le Carrés has few equals in espionage thrillers and once again with ABSOLUTE FRIENDS, he demonstrates why. Leeann Douglass
Rating:
Summary: Sad decline
Review: Le Carre has been my all-time favorite for decades, but he has completely lost it in his latest. A reasonably lucid prose style and sense of timing now falters. The characters are cardboard cliches. And the plot degenerates into conspiratorial nothingness. It's hard to believe this once-great author now expects us to follow the likes of Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky, and -- worse yet -- the Bader-Meinhof Gang of the Sixties. Avoid; buy any of his earlier works (even The Naive and Sentimental Lover) instead.
Rating: 
Summary: A Former Spy Myself, I Found This Book Generally Lacking
Review:
John Le Carre writes two kinds of books: truly riveting and gloriously accurate depictions of the spy world, and more labored pseudo-literature that over-reaches and disappoints. This book falls into the latter category.
As one who has both read much of what Le Carre has written, and also had the privilege of being a clandestine case officer (spy under official cover), I was initially taken with the concept of the book, despite its obvious intent to resurrect the genre in the aftermath of 9-11, but soon found myself bored beyond belief. It is closer to "The Naive and Sentimental Lover" side of Le Carre, than to the more deservedly riveting Tinker, Tailor, Drummer Girl, or Smiley's People, Looking Glass War side of Le Carre. There was a time, absent good non-fiction on the spy world, when Le Carre's work, his George Smiley work especially, not only delighted but informed. Now, with so many truly top-notch non-fiction books about intelligence (for instance, those by Milt Bearden, Robert Baer) one is really much better off reading non-fiction for fun. See my short and long lists of intelligence books (as well as emerging threats and blowback/dissent in foroeign affairs) for a sense of what non-fiction can deliver these days in the way of compelling and disturbing real-world spy reading. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition
Rating:
Summary: Classic LeCarre Unable to put it down
Review: Wow! He's back. Both myself and my colleague are LeCarre fans and critics (and yes we can be harsh). We both agree that this is classic LeCarre. One warning, don't plan on picking it up if you have something you must do, because you will find it hard to put it back down until you are done!
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful
Review: It's a wonderful book, really, informed by passion and anger, and more of the latter when all is said and done. Le Carre is a miracle, still seeking, still thinking, still leading with what sometimes feels like a broken heart. This is yet another gift from an authorial treasure. Enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Surigical in its precision
Review: Le Carre's talent always staggers me, but this is a masterpiece by even his standard. It's the greatest of spy novels, one based in human weakness rather than pyrotechnics. The book provides a wealth of technique without lapsing into the pedantic, but it also lays bare the near-incestuous talent pool of the British, the private politics of those who claim to have none, and the unspoken loves that sometimes prove more powerful than either. As a mystery, it's surgically precise. Intense, tense, oddly funny at moments, and haunting afterward.
Rating:
Summary: ONE OF HIS VERY BEST
Review: A masterpiece on the order of Graham Greene's "Human Factor". Hopefully this book will get LeCarre a Booker prize nomination.
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