Jonathan Pine is a former Soldier who is employed as a night manager in a Cairo Hotel, but working for British Intelligence. He becomes involved with a woman whose boyfriend is in cahoots with a man dealing in illegal arms. She reports this to the British authorities and it results in his lover’s death. Wracked with guilt, Pine wants to find this villain Richard Onslow Roper, young, dashing and intelligent, to infiltrate his operation and to bring about his downfall. The reader enters the murky world of arms dealing and the government intelligence agencies trying to stop the illegal trade. Pine is found to be a plant and is tortured mercilessly. It is a complicated story, with plots and subplots interweaving, a story of post-cold war espionage

Rather a ponderous novel, far from Le Carre’s best as the ending is rather contrived. It is difficult to have any empathy for Jonathan Pine, who plays the anti-hero figure. There seem to be too many characters, many who are not relevant to the storyline, and it makes for a long and rather dull. Le Carré shows that he knows how intelligence departments work and his knowledge is second to none. It is a shame the book descends into sleaze and immoral descriptions. Jonathan Pines’ unconvincing flaw is that he expects all beautiful women to fall in love with him. The secondary plot is the two main men after the same woman. Also, I found the plot unbelievable. How could Pine infiltrate the arms dealers so easily? Why did the woman called Jed fall for Pine so instantly when she was with Roper? Le Carre is a master storyteller who is well past his prime.