Trust No One – In the world of John Le Carré

David Cornwell, or John le Carré, as we usually call him, must have been wincing as he viewed the CCTV stills of those two Russian visitors to Salisbury. He was surely shaking his head in dismay as he watched their later avowals of their touristic interest in Salisbury Cathedral on Russian TV.

This is not just because he is an old secret service hand himself, with some professional appreciation of the skill at avoiding surveillance that any decent agent must develop. It is also because his every novel takes it as axiomatic that those with covert purposes (Russian spies, British spies, terrorists) have to be brilliantly cunning at hiding themselves. If spooks were to be like the apparent blunderers of the GRU, le Carré’s entire oeuvre would be doomed.

Great article in The Guardian about Le Carré and the Spy Story. The new Le Carré TV series based on the book The Little Drummer Girl som having premiere. I read the book many years ago so I will certainly see the show. I loved the recent filming of ‘Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy’ and ‘Night Watchman’. This new one is rumoured to be equally good.

Read the article here: Trust no one: how Le Carré’s Little Drummer Girl predicted our dangerous world

Source: The Guardian