PanSalonWe know from the start the pharmaceutical company is the culprit, so there's no suspense to the tale; le Carré thinks we're going to be so fired up by the polemic this novel disguises that we'll forgive him the lack of a true narrative arc. Some of his former strengths seem, suddenly, weaknesses. The ironic patois so many of his characters in the past have affected here seems to be in everyone's mouth; it's like pushing through a population of hyperverbal character actors. The Dickensian panorama of previous le Carré books might have better set off Quayle's limpidness; here, it is not made more interesting by contrast with the character of his dead wife, who is a martyred angel.
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay[/caption]
