The Constant Gardener - Softcover

Carré, John Le

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0340837098 ISBN 13: 9780340837092

Publisher: Hodder Paperback, 2005

Synopsis

Frightening, heartbreaking and exquisitely calibrated, THE CONSTANT GARDENER is a profoundly moving story of a man ennobled by his wife's tragic murder, and a magnificent exploration of the dark side of unbridled capitalism.

le Carré's record-breaking 500,000 copy international bestseller now comes to the big screen. Directed by critically acclaimed Fernando Meirelles (CITY OF GOD), with an all-star cast featuring Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Pete Postlethwaite and Bill Nighy, and shot on location in Berlin, Kenya and the UK, THE CONSTANT GARDENER will be the film tie-in of the year.

About this title

Review

There were those who feared that the end of the Cold War would deal a fatal blow to the creativity of many first-rate thriller writers who specialised in this territory. In the case of John le Carré, this would have meant the loss of not only Britain's finest thriller writer, but a serious novelist of quite as much literary gravitas as any of his mainstream contemporaries. Certainly, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold remains as utterly compelling today as when it was written, whereas such post-cold war le Carré themes as financial double-dealing seemed to inspire him less than the world of shifting identity he had dealt in so skilfully. But with The Constant Gardener, we have the author once again firing on all cylinders. The characterisation is as elegant and expressive as ever, the prose as limpid and forceful. But, most of all, le Carré has found a theme quite as pregnant as any he has handled in the past: the malign, deceptively ameliorative world of global pharmaceuticals. In the new novel, the customary themes of betrayal and danger are explored in a narrative that exerts a total grip throughout its considerable length. His protagonist, Justin Quayle, is an unreflective British diplomat whose job in the British High Commission in Nairobi suggests one of Graham Greene's dispossessed protagonists trying to survive in the sultry corruption of foreign climates. President Arap Moi's Kenya is a country in the grip of AIDS, while political machinations maintain a deadly status quo. When Quayle's wife (who has taken more interest in what is happening around her than her husband) is killed, his investigation of her murder leads him into a murky web of exploitation involving Kenyan greed and a major pharmaceutical company eager to promote its "wonder cure" for tuberculosis. As Quayle looks deeper into the company which his wife had been investigating, all he has carefully built around him begins to crumble. The steady accumulation of tension and rigorous delineation of character is emblematic of le Carré at his finest, and it is a tremendous pleasure to find the author so resolutely back on form, fired with a real sense of anger at the duplicity of the modern world:

"Specious, unadulterated, pompous Foreign Office bullshit, if you want its full name... trade isn't making the poor rich. Profits don't buy reforms. They buy corrupt government officials and Swiss bank accounts".

--Barry Forshaw (This Review refers to the hardback edition of this title)

Review

" 'A powerful, moving novel... essential reading' - Chris Woodhead, Sunday Telegraph. 'Richly detailed, full of righteous fire... It is certainly one of John le Carre's best books' - Sean O'Brien, The Times Literary Supplement. 'Le Carre poses deep spiritual questions about the damage 'the human race' has done, and continues to do, both to the planet and to itself. He does so in a page-tumer which reminds us that the master storyteller of the Smiley books has lost none of his cunning' - A.N. Wilson, Daily Mail"

About this edition

• Publisher: Hodder Paperback
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0340837098
• ISBN 13: 9780340837092
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 608