Agent Running in the Field

There are few authors who can capture the grey morality of espionage better than Le Carre. Agent Running in the Field brings his spy stories right into the era of Trump and Brexit, fully incorporating all the geopolitical challenges and difficulties that the modern times have.

The story is told by Nat, an older agent runner for MI6. He has done his job on various international assignments, but is past his peak and brought home to work on some lower priority internal agents.

In many ways this novel is a throw back to some of the cold war Le Carre novels. The big bad is again Russia, the inter-agency rivalries are at the forefront of the story again. When you come to consider the current political climate it does start to make sense. All the stories of Russian meddling in western elections and referendums, the cosying up to Putin that Trump has been doing and the geopolitical shock of Brexit are all changing the power dynamics within the world again.

This is a good Le Carre novel, the setting is of the time and the twists and turns are interesting and as morally grey as any good Le Carre is

i've been meaning to read this for a little while now, and it's been a long time since i read a le carré, but his writing is just as lush and intriguing as i remember. i loved so many of the details in this, and the groundwork and character depth was impressive. but overall i felt like the story took a little too long to get to the main plot, and while it was fast-paced, it somehow felt like it was dragging a little for a good chunk of it. i kind of wish i hadn't read the book summary, because it gave a little too much away somehow, haha. i really loved the ending though and how things unfolded once they got going, and truly just love le carré's writing. also listening to le carré actually narrate his own book was lovely.