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    The Looking Glass War
    Unavailable
    The Looking Glass War
    Unavailable
    The Looking Glass War
    Audiobook9 hours

    The Looking Glass War

    Written by John le Carre

    Narrated by Michael Jayston

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    "You are either good or bad, and both are dangerous."

    It would have been an easy job for the Circus: a can of film couriered from Helsinki to London. In the past, the Circus handled all things political, while the Department dealt with matters military. But the Department has been moribund since the War, its resources siphoned away. Now, one of their agents is dead, and vital evidence verifying the presence of Soviet missiles near the West German border is gone. John Avery is the Department's younger member and its last hope. Charged with handling Fred Leiser, a German-speaking Pole left over from the War, Avery must infiltrate the East and restore his masters' former glory.

    John le Carre's The Looking Glass War is a scorching portrayal of misplaced loyalties and innocence lost.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMar 5, 2013
    ISBN9781101575765
    Unavailable
    The Looking Glass War
    Author

    John le Carre

    John le Carré was born in 1931. 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 Honorable Schoolboy; and Smiley’s People. His novels include The Constant Gardner, The Little Drummer Girl, A Perfect Spy, The Russia House, Our Game, The Tailor of Panama, and Single & Single. He lives in Cornwall, United Kingdom.

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    Reviews for The Looking Glass War

    3.5/5

    449 ratings17 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This novels is about a spy who goes behind the iron curtain looking for inteligence of some rockets, but what I found more interesting is the way Mr. Carre shows the humanless work that espionage is.
    • 3/5
      ok. demoralising.
    • 4/5
      Another well performed Smiley book. The storybis told in le Carres usual understated style, evoking more strongly than previous books the bureaucracy and petty rivalries of the secret world. The characters are very plausible and well developed.
    • 3/5
      Certainly not my favourite John le Carre. I found the training section in the middle of the book particularly tiresome.
    • 4/5
      John Le Carre follows up The Spy Who Came In from the Cold with this more realistic take on the mundane, and inane, world of cold war espionage. The brief sparks of idealism occasionally present in the previous book is replaced here by an almost pervading cynicism as rival intelligence agencies compete for resources, with the fading military intelligence operation, the Department, snatching at the flimsiest of leads in an effort to prove their relevance compared to the political intelligence agency, the Circus. In doing so, lies are believed to the point where they become indistinguishable from truth, careers are made or broken, assets, including men, are wasted.This is where the more modern Le Carre began to take shape, introducing a brand of skepticism that can only be wrought by a former insider. At the time of its publication in 1965 it was excoriated by critics and did not sell nearly as well as its predecessor, not surprisingly since it was not in the mode of the rah-rah spy novels in vogue at the time. Sadly, as evidenced by the dysfunction revealed in the 9/11 investigations, clumsy, uncoordinated intelligence agencies incapable of working together still rule the world with disastrous consequences. The writing is less polished, but here lies the germ of the style that would become Le Carre's hallmark in the Quest for Karla trilogy.
    • 4/5
      This the Le Carre book that sets up the world of George Smiley's Circus. And I recall it as a "Business as usual" book, before Le Carre began to discuss the cost of the spy business, at which he was the master. One doesn't fully understand the following works without this home base book.
    • 4/5
      Short, and one of Le Carre's better spy novels, though there is little action in it and Le Carre's intro says it was very poorly received.We instead meet a sister service to the Circus, one that is in danger of being dropped altogether, and so goes out on a limb to prove sinister bomb developments going on just the other side of the curtain in order to keep their service alive. People die.
    • 3/5
      A sparsely written, but engaging, as you follow secret agents on their variouse quests. Fairly cynical too.
    • 4/5
      Bleak but compelling.
    • 3/5
      Not one of the best Le Carre's but still good.
    • 4/5
      In London there is a small military intelligence department, in decline since its glory days during the war. It no longer runs its own teams of agents abroad, and is resentful of the Circus, which has prospered at its expense. At the height of the cold war the department decides to put an agent into East Germany to check out reports of troop build-ups and a possible new rocket site, while pretending to the Circus that they are just doing a training mission. An air of seediness and desperation to cling onto past glories pervades the whole book, as the department attempts to gain a foothold in the more glamorous side of spying again.At the point in the book where the spy attempts to get into East Germany, I felt that the most likely outcome was that he would be caught, tortured and shot, the next most likely was the Circus turning up to sort the whole mess out, and there seemed virtually no possibility of him actually succeeding and getting back to the West alive ( I won't spoil things by telling you the actual outcome). An interesting story, but don't read it when you're feeling down, as it's not a fun read.
    • 2/5
      Sorry but I just didn't like it. Couldn't engage with any of the characters and there were plot holes big enough to drive a Routmaster London bus through. Too much time spent on the training of the spy part...the last part seemed rushed and hastily thought through even though one suspected how it would end.
    • 4/5
      Another great spy thriller were the agent is betrayed for the greater good.
    • 4/5
      A Le Carre I hadn't come across, with a pervasive sense of impending doom, as vain and complacent spies plot a sure-to-go-wrong low-budget operation with obsolete equipment. So the exact opposite of a James Bond novel.
    • 4/5
      Le Carré does a fantastic job of keeping a tension between love, play and game where political aspirations clash with friendships, war games with love and compassion. The final chapters are gripping as cynicism drips off the pages, and falsity, lies and indifference collide with loyalty, fear and frailties. It's a masterful piece which sheds light on the constructs - mirrors - that we build to justify our actions and busy our lives.
    • 4/5
      Rereading after fifty years this fourth of the Smiley series, I am struck by the quality of Le Carre's writing: the vivid creation of scene and mood, the deft characterization, the subtle manipulation of point of view. The scathing satire exposing the shoddiness of a service addicted to fantasies of past glory captures the Brexit era as accurately as it captures the post-Suez years.
    • 3/5
      I like the change that Le Carré makes with the plot lines of this story. Some of it is a bit more telegraphed then usual, but it is still a masterful piece of writing. His characters are, as always, stooped in mystery and originality. Makes for some glaring realism that is quite refreshing.