A Most Wanted Man

Description

A half-starved young Russian man in a long black overcoat is smuggled into Hamburg at dead of night. He has an improbable amount of cash secreted in a purse round his neck. He is a devout Muslim. Or is he? <br>He says his name is Issa. <br>Annabel, an idealistic young German civil rights lawyer, determines to save Issa from deportation. Soon her client's survival becomes more important to her than her own career. In pursuit of Issa's mysterious past, she confronts the incongruous Tommy Brue, the sixty-year-old scion of Brue Freres, a failing British bank based in Hamburg. A triangle of impossible loves is born. Meanwhile, scenting a sure kill in the so-called War on Terror, the spies of three nations converge upon the innocents. <p>Poignant, compassionate, peopled with characters the reader never wants to let go, <i>A Most Wanted Man</i> is alive with humour, yet prickles with tension until the last heart-stopping page. It is also a work of deep humanity, and uncommon relevance to our times. First published 2008.

Author description

John le Carre spent many years working for the British Foreign Service. A Most Wanted Man is his 21st novel in a long writing career that has spanned five decades. His early work explores the era of Cold War espionage, while his more recent novels have shifted to the post-Cold War world of corporate corruption, including Absolute Friends, Single and Single, and The Constant Gardener. But the constant themes throughout his career have been the moral problems of patriotism, espionage, and ends versus means.