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Agent Running in the Field: A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick
John Le Carre
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Description for Agent Running in the Field: A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick
CD-Audio.
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Agent Running in the Field written and read by John le Carré.
Nat, a 47 year-old veteran of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, believes his years as an agent runner are over. He is back in London with his wife, the long-suffering Prue. But with the growing threat from Moscow Centre, the office has one more job for him. Nat is to take over The Haven, a defunct substation of London General with a rag-tag band of spies. The only bright light on the team is young Florence, who has her eye on Russia ... Read moreDepartment and a Ukrainian oligarch with a finger in the Russia pie.
Nat is not only a spy, he is a passionate badminton player. His regular Monday evening opponent is half his age: the introspective and solitary Ed. Ed hates Brexit, hates Trump and hates his job at some soulless media agency. And it is Ed, of all unlikely people, who will take Prue, Florence and Nat himself down the path of political anger that will ensnare them all. Agent Running in the Field is a chilling portrait of our time, now heartbreaking, now darkly humorous, told to us with unflagging tension by the greatest chronicler of our age.
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'No other writer has charted - pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers - the public and secret histories of his times' Guardian
'John le Carré is as recognisable a writer as Dickens or Austen' Financial Times
'No writer has ever been better at turning the act of two people talking politely to each other across a desk into a blood sport' Telegraph
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Product Details
Publisher
Penguin Books Ltd
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 5 to 9 working days
About John Le Carre
John le Carré (Author, Reader) John le Carré was born in 1931. For six decades, he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the University of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of ... Read moreteaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5 & 6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel, A Legacy of Spies, appeared in 2017. He died on 12 December 2020. His posthumous novel, Silverview, was published in 2021. Show Less
Reviews for Agent Running in the Field: A BBC 2 Between the Covers Book Club Pick
A fine piece of storytelling. It is a neat, compact, slow-burning tale with just the right amount of twisting and turning and misdirection. Divided loyalties, uncertain motives, Russian agents, bureaucratic infighting, jaded spies, tatty offices - all of the things you want and expect from a high-quality le Carré thriller are here
The Times
A very classy entertainment ... Read moreabout political ideals and deception . . . laced with fury at the senseless vandalism of Brexit and of Trump. Le Carré is the master of the spy genre.
Guardian
Le Carré delivers a tale for our times, replete with the classic seasoning of betrayal, secret state shenanigans and sad-eyed human frailty, all baked into an oven-hot contemporary thriller . . . Agent Running in the Field is right on the money, in psychology as much as politics, a demonstration of the British spy thriller at its unputdownable best
Robert McCrum, Observer
As ingeniously structured as any of le Carré's fiction, skilfully misdirecting the reader for much of the time
Evening Standard
A masterpiece
Mick Herron, TLS
Master of the game
Sunday Times
Le Carré's troubled new protagonist is developed with the author's customary skill . . . an impeccable piece of writing
i
No other writer has charted - pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers - the public and secret histories of his times
Guardian
The master is back on form in this tale of Russian subterfuge and a middle-aged spy 's suspicious badminton partner
The Times
A rich, beautifully written book studded with surprises. Narrative is a black art, and Le Carré is its grandmaster
Andrew Taylor, Spectator
The master espionage novelist takes on Brexit and Trump in this tense and chilling portrait of today
Evening Standard
Wonderful . . . sophisticated entertainment from an author who, at 88, remains sharper than most of us
Church Times
John le Carré is as recognisable a writer as Dickens or Austen
Financial Times
A bang-up-to-date investigation of some of the big issues of our time
Sunday Express
Le Carré demonstrates once again his sublime elegance as a writer, and his delicate touch when portraying human failings in the shadowy world of espionage . . . subtle, wry and seamless, it's an utter joy, from first page to last
Daily Mail
A literary master for a generation
Observer
Blisteringly contemporary . . . Each new book from le Carré is refreshingly different and uniquely compelling
Economist
One of those writers who will be read a century from now
Robert Harris
Astute state-of-the-nation commentary
The Guardian Books of the Year
Classic, unmistakeable le Carré . . . it has the added bonus of some wonderfully vitriolic rants
Shots magazine: Book of the Month
The master of the espionage novel returns with a perfectly nuanced story of a spy on the scrapheap at the age of 47 and uncertain who to trust in the world of Brexit and divided loyalties
Daily Mail, Books of the Year
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