Rating: 
Summary: An outstanding performance by a great writer.
Review: Le Carre has created an exceptional body of fiction within the trappings of espionage and the Cold War. As the world has changed, though, the author's focus has shifted to peripheral criminals and hangers-on in shadowy but less recognizable conflicts. But his writing has always been about the human dimensions of people involved in these situations. A reciprocal betrayal - father and son of each other - cuts through this story like a fault line and defines the moral landscape which Le Carre explores with characteristic skill. The particulars of his characters never seem like backstory manufactured for a Holywood film. There is an undeniable Oedipal dimension to this fine book: Tiger Single is a survivor, whatever his morals, and Oliver, however high-minded, remains altogether untested. Wife and mother appears briefly as a lurid incarnation compared to Tiger's solid mistress. And the utter failure of three capers planned early in the book paves the way for Tiger's capitulation to a sordid course which his son cannot stomach. First rate.
Rating: 
Summary: John Le Carre does it again....
Review: "Single & Single" is simply breathtaking. The father-son conflict and characters are very well portrayed, and the plot is exciting. What I liked in the book is pretty much everyone else should have liked: the suspense and thrill. What I did not like in the book is the simplicity and sheer impossibility of some of Orlov brothers' proposed schemes in the begining of the book (selling Russian blood to US? Come on, what about old classics like weapons or nuclear triggers?); and (being Turkish) the depiction of Turkey as a criminal heaven where every official can be bribed, and nothing works. Mr. Le Carre, it isn't so.In short, the book makes really great reading. I advise it to all fans of the genre, and the author.
Rating: 
Summary: It was good bad but mostly bad
Review: i got board with this book very easil
Rating:
Summary: Excellent as always
Review: John le Carre can be writing about the phone book and he will make it exciting to read.
Rating:
Summary: le Carre still has the magic touch
Review: Tiger Single runs the London based investment firm, SINGLE AND SINGLE. His company handles millions made from the international sales of drugs and arms. Especially lucrative to the firm is the former Soviet states, whose criminal elements have an ally in the British company. Tiger wants the business to be a family affair. He pressures his son Oliver to begin to learn the business and ultimately take it over when Tiger retires. However, Oliver loathes the illicit dealings of his father and begins talking to the customs blokes. However the situation abruptly changes when his father's former allies in Russia try to wrestle the business from Tiger, using any means possible. Oliver knows he must decide between his family by rescuing his father or justice, by turning him over to the law. Of all the Cold War espionage novelists, John Le Carre has switched to the post Soviet Union environment without missing a beat. His latest story, SINGLE & SINGLE, is an intriguing look into the so-called legitimate banking of the West and its ties to the criminal elements of the East. The story line is crisp and filled with action. The sub-plot portraying the father-son conflict is well designed, but fails to live up to Mr. Le Carre's previous novel (THE TAILOR OF PANAMA) because Oliver never quite emerges as a complete person. This novel is a well-done tale, but not quite at the level of some of the author's previous masterpieces. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: As good as it gets !!!
Review: Single & Single is vintage Le Carre.In light of his previous work 'The Tailor of Panama' which was a big let down the present work comes as a solid proof that the master is still alive and kicking. This is a collage of his earlier work (no doubt about that!) and says something more that is as incisive and truthful as only Le Carre can write. The beginning of the book is a winner and the character of Alfred Winser keeps haunting the reader throughout the book only on the basis of that brief appearance. I would strongly recomment this book to all those who feel the need to understand (realise?) one's own psyche.
Rating:
Summary: Again a wonderful book by Le Carré
Review: Why write a lengthy review of this book. Yes there are shades of characters in this book we seem to have met before, but I do not care. This is Le Carré again at his very best and I loved it. After one day of reading it was over again and I will have to wait another two years or so......... I think I will start rereading Night Manager for a change
Rating:
Summary: Le Carre samples freely from his own back catalogue
Review: The opening is quintessential Le Carre. Who but Le Carre would chart the internal dialogue (or does that constitute a monologue?) that goes through the mind of senior corporate lawyer Alfred Winser, of the firm Single & Single, just as he is about to be summarily executed? Granted it isn't as incisive as Le Carre's previous interrogation scenes but it is still deftly done. If that whets the appetite, then the introduction and eventual discovery of the lead character, Oliver Single aka Oliver Hawthorne, is somewhat of a letdown. Like the elusive Scarlet Pimpernel, Oliver is first shown eluding a bank official who wants to find out why he has a sudden influx of funds in his bank account. Not giving away too much of his background, Oliver is next shown performing magic tricks at various children's parties. But all hopes that Oliver is as multi-faceted as Jim Prideaux (of Tinker, Tailor fame) are soon dashed. Oliver may be driven but he is not stoic though he shares a certain recklessness that seems common among many of Le Carre's leading men. Le Carre still has a knack for concocting a convoluted plot but he seems to be treading on very familiar ground when he paints his portraits of individuals leading double lives and under stress. In fact, one might even say that Single & Single seems to have been sampled freely (in this case, scavenged seems to be too harsh a word) from Le Carre's back catalogue - shades of Jim Prideaux; Brock - the George Smiley stand-in; the Russian locales (from Our Game); the bumbling hero (anything from The Honourable Schoolboy to The Tailor Of Panama, only this time with a happy ending); the duplicitous father (A Perfect Spy) - and, hopefully to rope in and satisfy a new set of younger readers, throw in an all-out assault at the end to justify the pyrotechnics. Single & Single is entertaining but what about those insights on the human predicament that made Le Carre an important writer? There isn't a sense of exasperation in Le Carre's tone (probably not yet anyway) but one certainly expects so much more out of a John Le Carre book that that in itself can be exasperating. - Stephen Tan (Note: This is an excerpt of a longer review that will appear in the February 1999 issue of BigO magazine.)
Rating:
Summary: Typical Le Carre - and that means a good spy novel
Review: Although the Cold War has long since faded into the history books, John Le Carre is still turning out good, well-written spy stories. You cannot use the term "potboiler" with a Le Carre book, although some of his more recent endeavors have come dangerously close to that level. Thankfully, "Single & Single" is not one of them. Since the KGB doesn't exist anymore, Le Carre must look elsewhere for the kind of story he writes like nobody else. And he's found it in the story of Oliver Single, the son and junior partner of a banking house whose owner and senior partner is a greedy, corrupt, and probably amoral (business)man who has gotten in way over his head by getting involved in the drug trade with some - shall we say, less than reputable - gentlemen from the former Soviet Union. As with most Le Carre novels, the story moves back, forth, and sideways between various parts of and characters within the same story. You have to flip back a few times to keep track of who's who and what's what, but that was part of the charm of the George Smiley/Karla series, and it's the same here. Unfortunately this book does suffer from the one flaw that exists in most of Le Carre's books - and that's an uncanny ability to turn its so-called action sequences into the dullest parts of the story. I actually enjoyed the back-and-forth between the characters more than I enjoyed what they did. But if this "flaw" were corrected, I think I'd actually like Le Carre less than I do. Weird, isn't it?
Rating: 
Summary: Slow & Unsteady
Review: Calling this book a "thriller" is a bit like calling English cooking "cuisine" (or that "not a cheap shot"). Countless digressions and flashbacks prevent the story from building up much tension. The opening chapter serves as a good case in point: When threatened with execution, Alfie Winser's life literally passes in front of his eyes. This seems witty at first, until it begins (and continues) to happen to people whose lives are not in similar jeopardy. In the final 75 pages or so the pot finally begins to boil, but we're left with such a waterlogged mess that the climax lacks any real punch. The story revolves around Oliver Single, one half of the book's title and junior partner of the story's eponymous capital investment firm. After experiencing ethical business qualms he leaves the firm, revealing its secrets to and British Intelligence and allowing them to set him up with a new identity. Of course, that never goes to plan, and coincident with his cover getting blown, Winser is killed and his father disappears. There's nothing left to do but for Oliver to become a junior G-man, find his dad, thwart the villains, and save the day. Sure, that's a pretty simplistic overview; on the way he has to fool around with three or four women, too. If you enjoy psychoanalyzing things, you'll get a kick out of this book. Everybody has issues. Everybody's in denial. From the obligatory psychopathy and transgenerational child abandonment to exhibitionism and German-engineered phallic symbols, this book has it all. If, on the other hand, you like a tale of espionage, cat and mouse, cross and double-cross ... well, there's always the Smiley books. In the end, Single & Single is a love story between a son and his father, so perhaps it's only natural that there be an Oedipal angle to the whole thing. If you go into it aware of what you're getting yourself into, perhaps you'll enjoy it more than I did. At any rate, the scene where Yevgeny Orlov asks Oliver to hop on his motorcycle ("Ride it, Post Boy! Ride it!" (p. 179)) takes on a whole new meaning when looked at from a Freudian point of view.
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