Volume 54, Number 6 · April 12, 2007
Double-Cross in the Congo
By William Finnegan
The Mission Song
by John le Carré
Little, Brown, 339 pp., $26.99
It must be odd to have a whole category of inscrutable world events assigned exclusively to your authorship. When the former Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko died in London recently, poisoned by a rare radioactive substance that then turned up in planes, hotels, offices, and an apartment in Germany, as well as in a number of people who had been in contact with Litvinenko—who, on his deathbed, accused Vladimir Putin of his murder—the international press, in almost perfect unison, pronounced the case 'straight out of le Carré.' The Sunday Times even quoted 'a source close to the [police] investigation' saying, 'This is a very complex John le Carré– style situation.' One American columnist went with 'John le Carré on acid.' Le Carré himself, meanwhile, told Reuters he had no comment.
Review, 4010 words
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