By Michiko Kakutani
Published New York Times: October 11, 2010
Author pic left - Stephen Cornwell for White Hare 2010
OUR KIND OF TRAITOR
By John le Carré
306 pages. Viking. US$27.95.
Though set in the present, the novel’s plot involving British intelligence officers and Russian operatives is reminiscent of the many cold war face-offs — with defections or purported defections propelling the story — that animated the author’s most keenly observed earlier work. And its depiction of two unsuspecting civilians who find themselves caught up in a dangerous, high-stakes espionage game summons memories of those classic Hitchcock movies starring the likes of Cary Grant or Jimmy Stewart as innocents who abruptly stumble into exotic, life-threatening situations on the international stage.
In this case the innocents are Perry Makepiece, a state-educated Oxford professor of English literature and all-around sportsman (tennis, mountain climbing, cross-country running), and his girlfriend, Gail Perkins, “a sparky young barrister on the rise, blessed with looks and a quick tongue.” The two have treated themselves to a Caribbean vacation, and there, “on the best tennis court at the best recession-hit resort in Antigua,” a tennis pro introduces Perry to an enigmatic new tennis partner named Dima — “a muscular, erect, huge-chested, completely bald man wearing a diamond-encrusted gold Rolex wristwatch and gray tracksuit bottoms kept up by a drawstring tied in a bow at his midriff.” Dima, the tennis pro explains, is a hugely wealthy Russian businessman, connected with several banks that have recently opened on Antigua.
Perry and Dima play a hotly contested match, and Perry and Gail soon meet Dima’s extended family: his dour wife, Tamara, who perpetually wears a “bishop-grade Orthodox cross” around her neck; their boisterous twin sons, Viktor and Alexei; his beautiful but troubled teenage daughter, Natasha; and two young girls, Katya and Irina, who are the daughters of Dima’s best friend, Misha, who was supposedly killed in a “car smash,” along with his wife, a week before.
During a birthday party for the twins, Dima and Tamara surreptitiously slip Perry a note that reads: “Dmitri Vladimirovich Krasnov, the one they call Dima, European director of Arena Multi Global Trading Conglomerate of Nicosia, Cyprus, is willing negotiate through intermediary Professor Perry Makepiece and lawyer Madam Gail Perkins mutually profitable arrangement with authority of Great Britain regarding permanent residence all family in exchange for certain informations very important, very urgent, very critical for Great Britain of Her Majesty.”
The full review at NYT.
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