Delicate truth

I'm amazed at myself for mentioning John Le Carré whilst writing about Tom Clancy: there is a world of difference between them and Clancy is no match for Le Carré as a writer. The book which I was writing about, Clancy's "Red Rabbit", was a cold war story primarily about a Russian KGB agent who decided to defect (so far, so good). The story was told in simple language and it was fairly clear from the beginning what was going to happen. I only mentioned Le Carré because some criticism had been leveled at Clancy because there was "no action" in his book (presumably as opposed to other books of his); there is frequently "no action" in Le Carré's work either, but I know whose books I prefer to read. 

Le Carré writes beautiful prose and it was a joy simply to read the opening page of his latest book, "A delicate truth", which I read over the weekend.

Continuing the author's penchant for finding new locations for his work, this one is initially set in Gibraltar before moving to the more familiar locations of Cornwall and London. As frequently happens with Le Carré, I had very little idea of where the book was heading until it was almost finished, meaning that I'll have to read it again shortly in order to improve my understanding.

In common with some of his later work, I suppose that this book is as much about whistle blowing as it is about anything else (like the lack of government oversight).

I don't want to write very much about the book yet because I didn't really understand it (obviously I understood the words, but I'm not sure what the author's intentions were) and I don't want to give away any of the plot