A Delicate Truth (Thorndike Press large print basic) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1410458261 ISBN 13: 9781410458261

Synopsis

“At the moment a new generation is stumbling upon his work, le Carré is still writing at something close to the top of his game… le Carré has not lost his ability to sketch, in a line or two, an entire character.” - New York Times

"Le Carré is back at full power with a book that draws on a career's worth of literary skill and international analysis. Le Carré will almost certainly follow Greene in being denied the Nobel prize for literature, but no other writer has charted – pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers – the public and secret histories of his times, from the second world war to the 'war on terror.'" - The Guardian

“The bewitching nuances of Le Carré are all there, for this is writing of such quality that – as Robert Harris puts it – it will be read in one hundred years. Le Carré was never a spy- turned-writer, he was a writer who found his canvas in espionage, as Dickens did in other worlds. The two men deserve comparison.” - Daily Mail

“Le Carré is as recognisable a writer as Dickens or Austen, with an often-imitated but never rivalled cast of seedy spies, false lovers, public schoolboys struggling with guilt, and charming but immoral leaders of the brutal establishment. Here he is again at 81, with his baroque characters and moral disgust intact in A Delicate Truth. ...This is vintage Le Carré and highly enjoyable. He is the master of the tightly crafted, interlocked plot, with characters who blow smoke, cause trouble and have chaotic affairs.” - Financial Times

"I think he has easily burst out of being a genre writer and will be remembered as perhaps the most significant novelist of the second half of the 20th century in Britain. He will have charted our decline and recorded the nature of our bureaucracies like no one else has. But that's just been his route into some profound anxiety in the national narrative. Most writers I know think le Carré is no longer a spy writer. He should have won the Booker Prize a long time ago. It's time he won it and it's time he accepted it. He's in the first rank." - Ian McEwan, winner of the Man Booker Prize

“As another exercise in the patented Le Carré formula for espionage novels, it succeeds admirably - the narrative drive and the workings of suspense are very strong and never let up. The language is crisp, the details not excessive for the most part, the occasional tip for armchair sleuths enlightening…we can still be grateful for what we have in such well-crafted specimens of [le Carré’s] art as A Delicate Truth.” - National Post

“Le Carré is now 81, but his writing is as fresh and perceptive as ever…This is a very fine book. Read it as a thriller. Read it as a tract for our times. In either case you will not be disappointed.” - Waterloo Record

About this title

Review

"At the moment a new generation is stumbling upon his work, le Carre is still writing at something close to the top of his game.... [A Delicate Truth] is an elegant yet embittered indictment of extraordinary rendition, American right-wing evangelical excess and the corporatization of warfare. It has a gently flickering love story and jangling ending. And le Carre has not lost his ability to sketch, in a line or two, an entire character."--Dwight Garner, The New York Times Magazine (front page)

"The narrative dominoes fall with masterly precision....As ever, le Carre's prose is fluid, carrying the reader toward an inevitable yet nail-biting climax."--Olen Steinhauer, The New York Times Book Review

"Timelier than ever."--The New York Times

"Well-wrought....A sharply sketched gallery of characters."--The Wall Street Journal

"Le Carre is fiercely modern...a confluence of styles, voices, approaches....A novel that beckons us beyond any and all expectations."--Washington Post

"[L]e Carre is...at full power with a book that draws on a career's worth of literary skill and international analysis. No other writer has charted--pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers--the public and secret histories of his times."--The Guardian (UK)

"Gorgeous writing. It's sophisticated storytelling at its very best."--USA Today

"A ripping, fun yarn."--Entertainment Weekly

"Loyalty to the crown is tested; consciences are checked; and nothing is more terrifying than, as this novel's protagonist puts it, 'a solitary decider' asking himself how on earth he talked himself into this mess."--The Daily Beast

"A remarkably assured touch.... [Le Carre] has maintained full control of his prodigious literary talents."--SF Gate

"The dirty deeds are brutal and crude. And so is the cover-up."--The Huffington Post

"Heady and absorbing....John le Carre remains in full command of both the craft of writing and the art of espionage."--Christian Science Monitor

"Le Carre further establishes himself as a master of a new, shockingly realistic kind of noir."--Booklist (Starred)

"This is a guaranteed hair-raising cerebral fright, especially for anyone who enjoyed Robert Harris's The Ghost or who just knows his or her email account has been hacked."--Library Journal (Starred)

"Le Carre focuses on the moral rot and creeping terror barely concealed by the affable old-boy blather that marks the pillars of the intelligence community."--Kirkus Reviews (Starred)

"A great story in sterling prose."--Publishers Weekly

"Le Carre proves himself a master of character development."--The Millions

"Another breathtakingly good work.... [the] story hurtles along with the speed of light."--Newsday

"The upper register of a great writer's oeuvre. Knowledge is not power in the novel: John le Carre believes that truth, difficult and generous on its own, can also kill you."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"Characteristically clever."--The Kansas City Star

"Stylish, taut storytelling....One of our finest writers."--Tampa Bay Times

"Witty as it is insightful....A Delicate Truth is a delightful read that unnerves as it entertains."--The Columbus Dispatch

"The master storyteller, le Carre, is still at war. His foes now are legion. But his battles, and his novels, are flooded with light and hope. He pins his faith, and that of his readers, on the fundamental decency of those most vulnerable and quirky of warriors - the average joes."--OregonLive.com

"Vintage le Carre."--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"A career's worth of literary skill and international analysis.....No other writer has chartered...the public and secret history of his times."--The Guardian (UK)

"Remarkable....[A Delicate Truth] displays the mastery of the early and the passion of late Le Carre."--Robert McCrum, The Observer (UK)

"Writing of such quality that...it will be read in one hundred years....[Le Carre] found his canvas in espionage, as Dickens did in other worlds. The two men deserve comparison."--Daily Mail (UK)

"The tension ratchets up superbly as revelation follows on revelation....[Le Carre] is a writer of towering gifts, whose fiction appeals to a reading public both popular and serious....A talent to provoke as well as unsettle."--The Independent (UK)

About the Author

"New York Times"-bestselling author John le Carre ("A Delicate Truth "and "Spy Who Came in from the Cold")" "was born in 1931 and attended the universities of Bern and Oxford. He taught at Eton and served briefly in British Intelligence during the Cold War. For the last fifty years he has lived by his pen. He divides his time between London and Cornwall.

Edition details

• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1410458261
• ISBN 13: 9781410458261
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 483