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The Tailor of Panama (Abridged) Audiobook
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"Le Carre remains far in front in his field, a startlingly up-to-date storyteller who writes as well about the shadows around the power elite as anyone alive." -Publishers Weekly Le Carre's Panama is a Casablanca without heroes, a hotbed of drugs, laundered money and corruption. It is also the country which on December 31, 1999, will gain full control of the Panama Canal. Seldom has the weight of politics descended so heavily on such a tiny and unprepared nation. And seldom has the hidden eye of the British Intelligence selected such an unlikely champion as Harry Pendel - a charmer, a dreamer, an evader, a fabulist and presiding genius to the house of Pendel & Braithwaite Co. Limitada, Tailors to Royalty, formerly of London and presently of Panama City. Yet there is a logic to the spies' choice, for everybody who is anybody in Cental America passes through Pendel's doors. He dresses politicos and crooks and conmen. His fitting room hears more confidences than the priest's confessional. And when Harry Pendel doesn't hear things as such - well, he hears them anyway, by other means. In a thrilling, hilarious AudioBook, le Carre once again effortlessly expands the borders of the spy story to bring us a magnificent entertainment straight out of the pages of tomorrow's history.
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“John leCarré is a magnificent reader of his own work. His professional narration mayextend to only six or seven of his titles, but his articulate, causticrendition beautifully captures both the sinister and the absurd angles of hislatest novel. An expatriate of dubious background, Harry Pender becomes therespected confidant of generals, gangsters, and patriots in modern-day Panama.Le Carré’s description of Harry and his dealings with a host of colorfulcharacters—at the behest of the British government—is masterful, and hisnarration captures all Harry’s uncertainty and bravura. He handles the wealthof internal dialogue and introspection with vitality, never letting thelistener out of the web.”
— AudioFile
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“Le Carré shows what an extraordinarily witty writer he can be, with a true feeling for the farcical.”
— Sunday Times (London) -
“A masterful portrayal of human weakness.”
— Times Educational Supplement (London) -
“A romantic delirium for troubled times.”
— Observer (London) -
“A work of rare brilliance.”
— Times (London) -
“John le Carré, the greatest spy novelist of the Cold War era, continues his post-Cold War quest to define the genre he helped perfect. The classic spy novel was essentially a story of good (England, the United States) vs. evil (Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union), in which good more or less prevailed. The Tailor of Panama is something else entirely: a spy novel with no spies in which the bad guys reap most of the rewards. It is also a viciously funny satire…From the characters to the setting, le Carré has succeeded in setting new parameters for an old genre.”
— Amazon.com, editorial review -
“Harry Pendel…[is] prey to a smarmy British agent who believes Harry knows or can learn the deepest secrets of Panama. Harry doesn’t, but he’s adept at making up what people want to hear, even if it is a geopolitical conspiracy on a grand scale. By turns comic and tragic, this is the kind of reading experience we have come to expect from le Carré. Surely nobody writes this kind of novel better than le Carré, not even the late Graham Greene, whose Our Man in Havana was the inspiration for this novel. [Recommended] for all collections.”
— Library Journal -
“The fate of nations hinges on an inoffensive bespoke tailor in this archly ironic parable out of Graham Greene.”
— Kirkus Reviews -
“The many and various talents of le Carré give this new audio version of his 1996 novel more than enough reasons for approval. Most obvious is the fact that he is a wonderful reader, a natural, honest storyteller, and artful actor who can command our attention and hold it long after others might lose their grip. In just a few minutes, he brings to life a large gallery of diverse characters…Le Carré’s superb reading skills also enable listeners to stop and sniff the prose to realize just how good a writer he really is.”
— Publishers Weekly (audio review)
Awards
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Book-of-the-Month Club Selection
The Tailor of Panama Listener Reviews
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Craig, 11/12/2016
About John le Carré
John le Carré, the pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell (1931–2020), was an English author of espionage novels. Eight of his novels made the #1 spot on the New York Times bestsellers list between 1983 and 2017. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, his third book, secured him a worldwide reputation as one of the greatest spy novelists in history. Numerous major motion pictures have been made from his novels, as well as several television series. After attending the universities at Berne and Oxford, he taught at Eton and spent five years in the British Foreign Service, serving briefly in British Intelligence during the Cold War. Being a member of MI6 when he wrote his first novel, Call for the Dead in 1961 in Hamburg, it necessitated the use of a nom de plume, by which he continued to be known. His writing earned him several honorary doctorate degrees and the Somerset Maugham Award, the Goethe Medal, and the Olof Palme Prize.