The Constant Gardener: A Novel - Hardcover

Le Carre, John

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743215052 ISBN 13: 9780743215053

Publisher: Scribner, 2000

Synopsis

When the young and beautiful wife of a much older embassy worker and amateur gardener is found murdered near Northern Kenya's Lake Turkana, his personal pursuit of the killers not only sets him up as their next target, but as a suspect among his embassy colleagues.

About this title

About the Author

John le Carré was born in 1931. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Honorable Schoolboy; and Smiley's People. His novels include The Little Drummer Girl, A Perfect Spy, The Russia House, Our Game, The Tailor of Panama, and Single & Single. John le Carré lives in Cornwall.

Reviews

As the world seems to move ever further beyond the comparatively clear-cut choices of the Cold War into a moral morass in which greed and cynicism seem the prime movers, le Carr 's work has become increasingly radical, and this is by far his most passionately angry novel yet. Its premise is similar to that of Michael Palmer's Miracle CureDcynical pharmaceutical firm allied with devious doctors attempts to foist on the world a flawed but potentially hugely profitable drugDbut the difference is in the setting and the treatment. Le Carr has placed the prime action in Africa, where the drug is being surreptitiously tested on poor villagers. Tessa Quayle, married to a member of the British High Commission staff in corruption-riddled contemporary Kenya, gets wind of it and tries in vain to blow the whistle on the manufacturer and its smarmy African distributor. She is killed for her pains. At this point Justin Quayle, her older, gentlemanly husband, sets out to find out who killed her, and to stop the dangerous drug himselfDat a terrible cost. Le Carr 's manifold skills at scene-setting and creating a range of fearsomely convincing English characters, from the bluffly absurd to the irredeemably corrupt, are at their smooth peak here. Both The Tailor of Panama and Single & Single were feeling their way toward this wholehearted assault on the way the world works, by a man who knows much better than most novelists writing today how it works. Now subject and style are one, and the result is heart-wrenching. (Jan. 9) Forecast: Admirers of the author who may have found some of the moral ambiguities and overelaborate set pieces of his last two books less than top-drawer le Carr will welcome a return to his best form. There is a wonderfully charismatic and idealistic heroine, which will bolster female readership, and the appearance of the book shortly after the release of a movie of Tailor (starring Jamie Lee Curtis) is bound to create an extra rush of media attention. Be prepared for the biggest le Carr sales in years.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

There is only one character in le Carre's latest novel who retains any belief in government as a force for good in the world, and she has been brutally murdered before the action begins. That fact should do fine for those in search of a symbol that le Carre's worldview has darkened considerably since the days of George Smiley. Tessa Quayle, wife of mild-mannered, seemingly ineffectual diplomat Justin Quayle, may be dead through the course of this disturbing book, but her spirit is omnipresent, as various foreign-service flunkies, corrupt government officials, and corporate honchos hustle to cover up not only her murder but also the crusade that led to her death--exposing the multinational pharmaceutical companies that foisted an untested, potentially deadly TB drug on Kenya's unsuspecting poor. Her naive husband, the constant gardener of the title, rises from his lethargy to follow Tessa's trail, from Africa to Italy to Canada and back again to Africa, where the inevitable climax awaits. That Justin acts more from love than conviction is at the heart of the change in le Carre. George Smiley, though awash in ambiguity and personal agony, always acted from conviction, even when to do so put love in jeopardy. Tragically, the world that Smiley's conviction wrought leaves Tessa hung out to dry, the victim of betrayal by the system that Smiley protected. We root for Justin as he valiantly puts together the puzzle, but we know his crusade, like his wife's, is doomed. But the real point is that Justin knows it, too. Readers who want a triumphant saga of right-thinking individuals bringing the corporate monolith to its knees should rent Erin Brockovich, but The Constant Gardener is not only about the triumph of the gray men who rule the world. It's also a love story, and as we watch Justin take on his wife's cause in spite of himself, we realize that there are parts of ourselves that the gray men will never reach. Bill Ott
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Scribner
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0743215052
• ISBN 13: 9780743215053
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 496