John le Carre

I have been a fan of John le Carré since I read The Spy Who Came in From the Cold for a college history class.  His George Smiley books appeal to me at the deepest part of my soul.  My family teases me because they say the movies based on le Carré's books are all dialogue - usually incomprehensible British dialogue, at that - and no action.  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy consists almost entirely of old British guys talking in circles, which is, in my estimable opinion, what makes it so good.  The George Smiley books are gritty and twisty and show the blurred lines between good guys and bad guys in the Cold War.  Le Carré's non-Cold War books however, while engrossing, unfortunately tend to be a teeny bit preachy and usually have a conveniently, even unrealistically happy-ish ending.  This includes books like Little Drummer Girl, The Night Manager, and The Constant Gardener, all with varying levels of polemics on issues ranging from Big Pharma to arms traffickers to the general venality and incompetence of the US and UK governments,.  Agent Running in the Field is in this vein.  It approaches Brexit and Donald Trump with the same level of righteous indignation as much of Le Carré's other later works.  I'm not saying I don't agree with him on every issue - I definitely do.  I'm just saying that what makes a Le Carré work great is his willingness to live in the gray areas and in the moral ambiguity of international relations, politics, and the spy business, and I feel that grayness and ambiguity is missing in some of his later works (not A Perfect Spy, though.  That is old-school John Le Carré brilliance).

Agent Running in the Field tells the story of Nat, the son of a UK expat and a Russian noblewoman who has returned home from decades working under diplomatic cover (a "legal" spy) in Eastern Europe, and his attempt to reintegrate himself into a country that has changed radically, and into a family that has grown used to his absence.  Like many of Le Carré's other heroes, he isn't perfect - a tendency to infidelity is frequently hinted at - nor is he particularly heroic.  He's not James Bond.  He's a forty-something, graying, athletic guy who really loves to play badminton.  Upon his return to a Brexit-obsessed Britain, Nat plays a few games of badminton at his club (apparently that's a thing in the UK) and is challenged by the young, irascible, and extremely self-righteous Ed to a game.  They form a friendship of sorts, until Nat discovers during an operation in London that Ed is acting as a spy for the Russians.  Ed's doing the wrong thing for the right reasons, and Nat must find a way to protect an idealistic but misguided young man from making a terrible mistake.

Le Carré's spycraft is still brilliant and fascinating and the story is subtle and twisty and surprising. I wish it had been slightly less preachy, but I will always eagerly await every new release as long as he continues to write.  Even a less-than-perfect John Le Carré book is head and shoulders above the others.