A perfect spy

No cover

John le Carré: A perfect spy (1986, Viking Press)

475 pages

English language

Published Dec. 15, 1986 by Viking Press.

ISBN:
978-0-670-81162-5
Copied ISBN!
OCLC Number:
16044457

View on OpenLibrary

(1 review)

18 editions

One spy's life

Wow. This is not a 'spy novel'. This is a novel about a much more realistic spy (as I'd heard le Carre writes); no 007. It's a fantastically deep character study; you feel like you know Pym better than he knows himself. There is some plot tension, but mostly it's this fascinating, dense story of a life, one spy's life.

As an American, the British colloquialisms coupled with the unreliable narrator (in one POV) got me quite confused. I sorted it out later in the book.