True master of characterisation

Issa, the Muslim son of a Chechen mother and a Soviet officer, arrives on the run in Hamburg to be befriended by Annabel, a young human rights lawyer, only to find himself at the centre of a web of secret service intrigue involving German, British and US spooks.

They're all pursuing their own conflicting agendas under the spurious umbrella of the war against terror.

Throw in a British banker with, perhaps incredibly, a conscience, whose bank has skeletons in its cupboard along with ill-gotten looted gains, and we have the raw materials of a compelling novel that reveals how these grotesque power games can destroy the innocent.

Le Carre's great strength lies in his ability to weave through his compelling narrative fabric the ambiguous strands of personality, love and even tenuous human morality, making the reader care about the fate of his characters in a genre which is so often peopled by cardboard cut-outs.

GORDON PARSONS