Rating: 
Summary: A Step Back
Review: It seems silly now to recall all that hand-wringing about whether the end of the Cold War would mean curtains for the spy novel. John Le Carre brilliantly explored other options for intrigue in "The Constant Gardner," but now he's put his old German trench coat back on in a novel that burns with indignation but falls short of "Gardner"'s humanity and complexity.In "Absolute Friends" the kind-hearted son of a British Army officer in India named Ted Mundy and Sasha, the crippled son of a former Nazi, form a bond that begins in the 1960s. The easy-going Ted has, mostly through his inability to say no to anyone, been a double agent in the pre-Wall-fall days. Ted used his earnings to open a language school in Germany, which went under when he was defrauded by a partner. Now Ted is sort of on the lam, working as a tour guide at Mad Ludwig's Castle in Bavaria and living with a Turkish woman and her son. He is happy. After many years of silence, Sasha contacts him, saying that an anonymous benefactor needs Ted's linguistic and teaching skills in a plan to counter pro-Iraq-war propaganda. Ted's desire to do good is reengaged, and he accepts the assignment. I've always found Le Carre's spy world of "tradecraft," "handlers," and "little Jews" (or whatever ethnic group he's discussing) too precious and British public school to really resonate with me, and I was much taken with how well he applied the new rules of the alleged new world order to a truly desperate area like Africa. "Absolute Friends" will please fans of the Cold War books with its concentration on the minutiae of the spy game and its personalities. Ted is a fully-developed character, not quite believeable, but appealing. Sasha, on the other hand, remains a cipher and it is difficult to understand why his friendship is so important to Ted. Le Carre's new book is a good read, but the intelligence with which he probed the issues in "The Constant Gardner" made it seem as though he were setting on a new, exciting path that could be a model for the genre.
Rating: 
Summary: Riveting...don't pick up if you need to sleep
Review: I can't recall the last time I read a spy novel, but I read an interview with the author that piqued my interest. I was rewarded with a beautifully written character study, plot twists worthy of Dickens and an ending so plausible as to be a grim foreshadow of life in the near future. The emergence of a broken identity into the world of spies is artfully rendered and gripping to follow. What more could a reader ask? One reviewer here did note a plot element offered by a shadowy character who arrives late in the story. I agree that the secretive plan bordered on the silly, but unlike the other reader I found it so obviously transparent that I raced through the remaining pages to discover the truth. Although a bit long in isolated spots, the end is a blistering indictment of the madness of our age. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a terrific spy novel and to anyone else who feels as if our world has turned upside down.
Rating:
Summary: Oddly constructed, shallow characters, sometimes boring
Review: It's difficult to describe what this book is about. This could be because very little actually happens, or if it does happen, it does so in a kind of retrospective narrative with the action deleted, the (bitter) emotional reaction stressed. The plotline is fairly obvious, but the characters are so shallow they disappear into their own story, but then they may suddenly reappear and lecture, lecture, lecture for several pages about things we've already heard and already know, so please shut up and give us some action scenes! We follow the senseless friendship of two men,Ted and Alexander/Sasha. There is never any clear reason why these men remain friends, except because they've discovered that nobody else likes them. Sasha is driven to object to everything his father -- a pastor -- believes in, which is not a good way to lead your life. Who cares what your Dad believed in, I want to shout. Find out what you believe in and Sasha, by the way, go get a job. Well, Sasha is one-dimensional and often incoherent, but the same can be said for Ted. Ted, though, is merely disappointed in his father. Any stronger reaction seems beyond his capacity. Ted is too dull to become obsessed or driven. He tends to be tossed around by others, passively accepting what is and avoiding the attempt to change things so that he can create what is not. However, in contrast to Sasha, Ted tries to capture a decent life for himself, but he fails continually. His failures don't arouse sympathy because he doesn't have much struggle to him, either with others or inside of himself. He's a "loser" rather than a hero. This could still be made interesting, but the author doesn't carry that off. It seems like the political message, which is unclear for the bulk of the book, is more important than the characters -- which is sad since if we wanted politics, we'd be reading the newspapers, no? Yet we follow Ted through his failures, which are well-detailed. What successes he has are told sketchily, as if they are something to be ashamed of. You long for an interesting character -- a wicked woman, maybe, or a psychopathic bad guy, to liven up the story. You don't get these. Instead, a few spies show up, the recruitment happens, and Ted is suddenly in an espionage story with Sasha as his partner; however, the events in the story are told in the same emotion-based narrative, minimizing the action and the suspense once more. Ted also meets the only intriguing characters in the book, his Turkish girlfriend and her son, Mustafa. If Le Carre had wanted to write a novel that objected to the Iraq war, he might have done so by focussing himself on these characters, fleshing out their story, and taking Ted to the Middle East in their care. It might have been fascinating, for instance, to explore tribal competitions and hatreds as they come up against an overwhelming hatred of Americans or the Western cultures. But that didn't happen. Instead, the story continues in a rather dull manner until a bad guy finally shows up. He too gives you pages and pages of lecture on his sensibilities, after which his solution for combatting American imperialism is exposed. You laugh because it is so absurd and so trivial. After this, the book has one fine moment as Ted talks to his former boss, Amory, about the state of the world. Then the end comes rapidly, and sad to say, it is an ineffectual ending in all respects. Pre-publication publicity had this book as being fairly anti-American. I noticed that it was barely so, amounting to only a few sentences, and consider The Constant Gardener a lot more anti-American, or rather anti-Corporate dominance, than is Absolute Friends. I think the author would have had a more effective political statement if he'd stuck with a similar plotline to his previous novel, or he would have had a much better book if he'd chosen to do what he does best, write suspenseful stories with strong characters, and avoid too much politics in a politically confused world. Not a bad read, but not a good one either. Try The Constant Gardener or his farce, wonderfully written, Tailor of Panama. This novel might leave you dozing.
Rating: 
Summary: Two Thirds of a Good Book
Review: It's not the message that bothered me about le Carre's latest. It's that he seems to have cobbled two different books together. It opens with his trademark wonderful characterization of a lonely, sympathetic semi-loser who, in flashback, stumbles into a career as a cold war spy. But the ending has none of the sense of inevitability we expect from the man who wrote the classic, "Spy Who Came In From the Cold." Instead, after a bit of clumsy foreshadowing in the middle (that seems added on afterwards for effect), the stereotyped villain creates a barely believable scam that results in a too sudden and disjointed climax. After falling in love with the protagonist, I was left feeling short-changed by this sudden, explosive ending, which is explicated only in a final chapter that violates every rule of show, don't tell. It's as if le Carre was in the middle of writing another terrific book, when he decided he needed to make a statement about the war in Iraq. Sadly, the two didn't mesh. I sympathize with Mr. le Carre's need to send his message. But next time, I wish he would pay more attention to the craft with which he sends it.
Rating:
Summary: Not his best, certainly his worst ending
Review: Having read all of LeCarre's previous books, I expected fantastic writing with a bit of a downer ending. Well this one had only mediocre writing and his worst ending ever! I really was disappointed. His writing still outshines most, but pales in comparison to that of his previous books. And the ending? I don't mind if it's a bit depressing, but this one was downright obscene. In the last chapter he stops writing and starts preaching, and the sermon is bad for any Americans--we're arrogant imperialists who faked the war in Iraq for oil and power, and worse than that, we're at fault for our response to terrorism. Seeing as how that was written by a man whose country didn't lose thousands of citizens on 9/11, I'm afraid I take offense. My recommendation: Wait for us his next book, probably he'll do better.
Rating: 
Summary: Sad and unrealistic.
Review: Don't waste your time one this book.
Starts out fairly well and progress okay.
But then just gets stupid/ sad.
I must be brain washed but, the major themes seem silly.
Rating: 
Summary: Not a happy book.
Review: I bought this book as a Christmas present to myself. That it took me a couple of months to finish it says I didn't find it an exciting read. It was tedious, although filled with great excitement and the old LeCarre spark in parts. The problem I have with this book is it's probably too real. It's like watching bowell surgery on TV. Absolutely honest and disgusting because it is. I'm tired of all the corruption and betrayal in the world. I don't need it in my fiction too.
Rating:
Summary: An Absolute Friend is a Friend Always, Even if He's a Spy
Review: "Absolute Friends" is about Ted Mundy ex-British spy who has retired and moved to Germany after the end of the cold war. Then one day a former East German spy named Sasha, who was Ted's absolute friend from the cold war hey days, comes back into Ted's life with a new cause. Anxious to get back in the saddle again, Ted takes up with Sasha. This story is very controversial, because Mr. le Carrè has made it no secret that he's against the war in Iraq and he wears his politics on his sleeve in this book, but despite that, it's still a very compelling read.
Compelling because Mr. le Carrè never lets up on the story, so you kind of register his politics, which I agree with by the way, in your mind, but somehow it doesn't detract from the plot, or the fact that you are so absorbed in the book, that you forgot the spaghetti sauce is boiling over, or that you're gonna be way late for work. John le Carrè has been churning out thrillers since before I was born. He was a master storyteller then and he's a master storyteller now. I really don't think it's possible to go wrong with anything he's ever written. But this one maybe be his best, though I gotta admit I really love "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" and "The Tailor of Panama" a whole heck of a lot too.
Rating:
Summary: Literary thriller with problems
Review: This is indeed not your typical Le Carre story. It is more literary than commercial - hence some of the negative reviews here complaining of boredom. Don't read it if you want something fast-paced and suspense-full. The suspense in this one builds very slowly. What this story lives from is the study of two characters whose lives remain intertwined through the second half of the cold war until today, and in which they play some role in the big game of espionage. It is also a mini-study of political Germany of the same period. The achievement of this book is something I have never seen from an English-language writer before: true grasp of Germany's political culture, its language and people (I am German myself). It wasn't always like this: in earlier novels Le Carre, too, has misspelt words and names, and altogether given too shallow an interpretation of what was happening. This book however is a quantum leap in that sense. Le Carre's understanding of German radical leftist thinking, language and actual history is uncanny. This is perhaps the only chance you get to hear the voices of the far left speak in its original tone - but in English.
The greatest failing of this story is that it builds so slowly and then comes to a sudden, abrupt and not very convincing end. The American operation that leads to the protagonists' death in Heidelberg is absurd and could never happen in this shape. The Americans wouldn't try it, and German authorities would never allow it. Le Carre has tried to make a point of course, but I didn't feel he made it very well. The American intervention is just a little too blatantly evil to be believable.
I would, however, like to make one comment on the accusation that this book is somehow "anti-American". This is only true if any book that is critical of a specific German/French/Russian government's actions is "anti-German/French/Russian". In other words, it is not.
Rating:
Summary: Interesting characters, too much flashbacking
Review: This book has some interesting characters, but the plot description is slightly misleading. The first chapter is in the present day, but after that we get an overlong flashback which basically is a biography of our protagonist, finally getting back to the present at about page 300. The "biopic" format was unnessecary, the main focus should've been on the present day portion of the story, with maybe a few flashbacks bookending it ala Godfather II.
The present day storyline:
British ex-spy Ted Mundy is living in Heidelberg Germany, running an English language school. Estranged from his first family, he has a ready made second family in the form of a Turkish fiancee and her young son. But the school's business partner turns out to be a crook, so Ted has to get a crappy job as a tour guide. He is then reuinted with a longtime acquaintance, a German anarchist named Sasha. Sasha is working for a counter culture guru named Dimitri, and Dimitri wants Ted to reopen his school and turn it into a "Counter University". But Dimitri's money comes from questionable sources, which causes concern for Ted, and his old CIA contact Jay Roarke, who is convinced of a terrorist plot to destroy Heidelberg. Are Sasha and Dimitri really terrorists or is the shady Roarke setting them up? It all leads to a violent, and tragic, finale. Too bad it takes so long for this plot to get rolling.
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