This is my second John Le Carré novel (the first was reviewed here) and according to reviews it ranks among his all-time best. I've attempted to read A Perfect Spy
twice before, both times enjoying the dense prose, but getting sidetracked after the first few chapters. This time I pushed through, and was thoroughly rewarded - I couldn't put the book down until the very end (which is impressive for a five hundred page novel). Set during the Cold War, this epic book centers around Magnus Pym, a British spy and traitor, who has spent decades as a high ranking operative with British Intelligence, while simultaneously trading information with Czechoslovakia . The details of how Magnus manages to fool everyone around him are explored, but it is the slow building of his psychological profile around which the book turns. The reader delves into Pym's psyche: his ticks, ever-present ghosts, and his moral guideposts.
Like my recent read, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
, the book is partly an epistle. Shocked by a personal loss, Pym disappears from his family and work, holes up in a quiet boarding house, and writes a letter to his son Tom, attempting to explain his life and why he choose to spy on his own country. His letter gradually exposes his childhood and early years as a spy, as well as his conflicted relationship with his con artist father Rick. (In the Introduction Le Carré admits that Rick is based largely on his own father). Interspersed between Pym's admissions, Le Carré depicts the desperate attempts to track him down by his wife Mary, his long-time mentor Jack Brotherhood, the U.S. intelligence community and his Czech contact. Like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
, Le Carré is the master of describing the twisted art of spycraft, bringing it to life with his masculine yet lyrical writing style. 