British novelist John LeCarré gained widespread
popularity with his Cold War spy novels. The stories were taut, the characters
fascinating. When the USSR collapsed,
leaving the US as the only superpower, many of LeCarré's readers thought sadly
that his career was over. No more Cold War, no more spy novels. Both LeCarré
and the world, especially the US, proved the pessimists wrong. LeCarré
continues to write compelling novels. The US continues to provide abundant
supplies of evil and greed. A Delicate Truth
is replete with good characters and evil ones.
The good guys are generally, as in his prior novels,
mid-level British bureaucrats, bright and honorable. The neo-bad guys come from
the top echelons of private defense contractors. The bureaucrats are motivated
by love of country, the contractors by love of money and power. The author also offers a few complex and hard
to define characters who are usually patriotic but sometimes succumb to
temptations of the flesh or for power. All is written with LeCarré's customary
grace and aplomb.
The contractors are "trader(s) in small
wars...(guilty of) sheer, wanton, bloody indifference to anybody's interests
but their own."
A Delicate Truth does not curry favor with Americans,
except, perhaps those who sometimes question their country's goodness and who
enjoy a complex story well told.
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