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    Our Kind of Traitor: A Novel
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    Our Kind of Traitor: A Novel
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    Our Kind of Traitor: A Novel
    Audiobook11 hours

    Our Kind of Traitor: A Novel

    Written by John le Carré

    Narrated by Robin Sachs

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From the New York Times bestselling author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Night Manager, now a television series starring Tom Hiddleston. John le Carré's latest novel, A Legacy of Spies, is now available.

    In this exquisitely told novel, John le Carré shows us once again his acute understanding of the world we live in and where power really lies.

    In the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and with Britain on the brink of economic ruin, a young English couple takes a vacation in Antigua. There they meet Dima, a Russian who styles himself the world's Number One money-launderer and who wants, among other things, a game of tennis. Back in London, the couple is subjected to an interrogation by the British Secret service who also need their help. Their acquiescence will lead them on a precarious journey through Paris to a safe house in Switzerland, helpless pawns in a game of nations that reveals the unholy alliances between the Russian mafia, the City of London, the government and the competing factions of the British Secret Service.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 12, 2010
    ISBN9781101436899
    Unavailable
    Our Kind of Traitor: A Novel
    Author

    John le Carré

    John le Carré was born in 1931. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; The Honorable Schoolboy; and Smiley’s People. His novels include The Constant Gardner, The Little Drummer Girl, A Perfect Spy, The Russia House, Our Game, The Tailor of Panama, and Single & Single. He lives in Cornwall, United Kingdom.

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    Reviews for Our Kind of Traitor

    3.5/5

    413 ratings43 reviews

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    • 4/5
      (original review, 2010)About a third of the way through “Our Kind of Traitor”, I sat back and reflected on the elegance of the prose and the grace and ease with which the narrative moved back and forth through time, and two words came inescapably to mind: Joseph Conrad. I can't believe, after all the le Carré novels I had already read at that point, that this was the first time the comparison ever occurred to me, but there it is.In a way, though, it's fitting that the realization came with that book: "Our Kind of Traitor" is an elegant novel, certainly an accomplished bit of storytelling, but I don't think anyone will ever rank it alongside “Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy” or “The Constant Gardener”. Yet I savored the book for the skill and grace with which it was written. This is what distinguishes Le Carré from somebody like Michael Crichton: he can be read with pleasure simply for the quality of his writing. Crichton is a wonderfully efficient storyteller, and as long as he's got a good tale to tell, he can be great fun to read. What he does is not easy, and at his best he does it very, very well. But I could never imagine sitting back, after reading a page of any one of his books, and simply savoring the language for its own sake. With John le Carré I find myself doing this all the time -- as I do with Raymond Chandler, another truly great writer who happened to work in "genre fiction".Conrad was probably the originator of the literary thriller in which a compromised, emotionally tormented male protagonist, an anti-hero no less in the true sense, is placed centre-stage, in a morally ambiguous setting with all sorts of dark shades. And that is very much Le Carre’s model too. It’s so very sharp and proficient (as, of course, is the plotting and structure). Some Le Carré detractors grumble about clichés and typical thriller language, but as far as I’m concerned (and I am, admittedly, a very big fan) they are only demonstrating their own philistinism in doing so. He does use the kind of colloquialisms and set phrases that you could dismiss as clichés elsewhere, but half of them he’s invented himself, and the other half he is using knowingly, with perfect confidence. There is nothing wrong with clichés if the writer is good enough to shepherd them around the page exactly as he wants, to be their master. They are only a problem if the writer isn’t good enough, and they come blundering in unbidden and out of control, often in the midst of pretentiously considered sentences. Le Carré, obviously, is plenty good enough. The pacing, the tone: it's all just brilliant, and as a literary device, the way the protagonist retreats deeper into his own repressed psychology as his own physical horizons are narrowed down and down is ever so clever. Love it; absolutely love it.I think le Carré is seen as transcending the genre because he creates a world which is very believable even though I am sure that the Circus bears no resemblance to Britain's SIS. For a certain type of high minded reader who frets about such things, books that feature stuff that manifestly don't exist (dragons, amateur detectives, starships) are bothersome. They smell of flippancy and a departure from seriousness and worthiness which is not really acceptable to a reader who views reading as a stern and proper undertaking like a Calvinist at prayer. And I love SF...SF = Speculative Fiction.
    • 2/5
      This is another of those books that got thrust into my hands with a admonition that I'd "LOVE this book." Sadly, the opposite is true. I even made sure to put space between the giving and the reading to keep expectations down.The writing itself isn't bad, which is why the book has two stars and not something lower. The execution leaves MUCH to be desired.There are constant breaks in the text, even through the middle of the chapters, which designate the change of some form to the scene. Not bad, expect that you had to really pay attention to know if this was going to a flash back, another point of view during the same time, or some melding of the three. This is made worse when the obvious character of who's the point of view is very nebulous. I think the author wanted to write an omnipotent point of view, but this is just a muddled mess.From what I could discern before giving up at page 102, this was an ordinary couple who took a holiday to Antigua, met a Russian money launderer who wanted out, and their conversation with MI6 after they got back to the UK. I might try this author again, as I'm told his books are decent, but if this is his style, he won't be on my regular read list.
    • 4/5
      Wonderfully written, with the tension slowly building throughout the story and lots of unanswered questions at the end. Brilliant.
    • 4/5
      In this novel, Le Carre continues to plumb the depths of modern global capitalism to forge a compelling if profoundly pessimistic view of the world. You follow the unfolding operation (the worlds leading money launderer has agreed to testify against the Russian mafia and must be escorted to safety through a maze of intrigue and deception) with growing dread as corrupt political forces beyond the control of the novel's heroes conspire against them. While the book is tautly suspenseful, I don't think it is a spoiler to warn that there is no happy ending. That seems to have become inevitable in Le Carre's work. His perspective on why the world is tragic is what makes him worth reading.
    • 4/5
      I will not give a spoiler here, but I will say that the book has an ending that was totally unexpected by me. The entire story setting up the scene, and the last page takes that scene and gives it an earthquake shaking.
    • 4/5
      A fairly ordinary British couple meet a notorious Russian gangster while on holiday. The gangster wants out of Russia with his family and fortune intact and a secretive British agency wants to help. The British couple, asked to help, get further and further enmeshed in a world they know nothing about. John le Carre has be writing spy novels for a long time now and this one was excellent.
    • 3/5
      Pure le Carré. It's the writing and the characters.
      Update. Now down-graded to 3/5 after reading "Mission Song."
    • 3/5
      Very English, in a way. Comfortable at times, very disconcerting at others. I don't think Le Carre's newer works match The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Smiley's People, but he still tells a gripping and enthralling spy story.
    • 1/5
      Chatty with weirdly mixed tense and seeming to be going nowhere. I am giving up at 60 pages in.
    • 3/5
      Oh it started out so well, with this interesting couple on vacation in Antigua and the mysterious Russian oligarch who took them up. Then it got so complicated, back there at MI5 in England, I couldn't quite follow what had happened back in the old days and who might be the traitor. And then [spoiler alert] he put them on an airplane and blew it up. I said to my husband "What a terrible ending! " He said "All his later books have that problem."Can't he figure out a plot anymore? I used to love his books so much.
    • 3/5
      Thank you, GoodReads and Viking for the ARC.
      Highly plausible and timely scenario. Well written including some unusual literary flourishes that add to the fun. Characters are believable and the pace is quick.
    • 4/5
      Classic le Carre--dark, just of the edges of normal, the intersection of the things we fear and the things we secretly desire.
      More followable than I expected--or maybe I am getting better at following his somewhat oblique writing. Thoroughly enjoyable.
    • 3/5
      Very typical Le carre : tough read, layered and dark.

      An acquired taste.
    • 4/5
      It took me a while to immerse myself in the story. It was probably because I've been no longer [[Le Carré]] read more and therefore have to get used to his writing style again.A young couple spends his holidays in Antigua. There they meet Dima a Russian money launderer on a large scale, with his whole family and entourage. Dima wants to know his family protected because he can not expect much support from the Russian money mafia anymore. It's a race with time as Dima soon signs the papers that cut him off. The British secret service, on the other hand, is taking the time to acknowledge him as a defector, as senior members of the government are involved in this money laundering.It was an exciting quick read.
    • 4/5
      Had I the power, I would confer on David John Moore Cornwell, aka, John le Carré, eternal life. As long as he promised never to retire from writing. While Our Kind of Traitor may not be his absolute best novel, it's very good and worth remarking on for these reasons.First, it's the first novel of his that doesn't revolve around a disgruntled (usually spy) idealist. This time the central character is a pure idealist, a man of high vision, aspiration, and spirit -- a mountaineer.Second, le Carré, pairs his hero with a heroine who is his equal in solid English character, also not too sophisticated to have become cynical, and filled with the same kind of intrepid courage to do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do, as is her lover.Third, the object of attention, a Russian money launderer who wishes asylum for himself and his family in exchange for everything he knows about the international financial crimes racket that centers on money laundering and could incriminate Big Wigs in the British government and Russian oligarchs is so well drawn, complex, sympathetic, alarming, and naive all at the same time that he is easily one of the author's most memorable characters.The plot is simple, deviously simple, in comparison to most of le Carré's oeuvre but is rich in examination of character. In fact, he has written a novel entirely motivated and driven by the exploration of the iconic aspect of English character that we identify with Eton's playing fields. That of fair play.To say any more about what happens, who is who, and what is what will spoil the enjoyment of the next reader of this novel. But I will add this observation: For all that is unique in this work, separating it from his previous books, there are at least two "things" that all readers will recognize as le Carré's signature -- the curmudgeonly Smiley operative is named Hector and a nemesis of fair play is named Longrigg. How could they be named otherwise?
    • 4/5
      This was my 1st; venture into a John Le Carré Novel. Well, okay that's a bit of a lie I'd tried to read one or two of his other more well known novels but for some reason or other stumbled and fell well before the first fifty pages were up. This, on the other hand was a smoother drift into his world of spies and lies and half-truths and all in all it was a pretty good read complete with a quick and tight little twist right at the end, which somehow felt right and yet wrong at the same time but then, perhaps that was Mr Le Carré's intention all along. For that reason alone I'll willing pick up another of his lesser known novels and see if it charms me in a similar way.
    • 4/5
      John le Carré, ein Name der für spannende Agenten- und Spionagethriller steht - mit dieser Erwartungshaltung machte ich mich an sein neuestes Werk. Ich las und las, amüsierte mich prächtig und ertappte mich dennoch dabei, immer oberflächlicher über den Text hinwegzugehen, bis ich bei Seite 202 (ca. der Hälfte) das Buch resigniert zuschlug. Denn von Spannung - keine Spur. Welch eine Enttäuschung!
      Doch ich hatte mich selbst in die Irre geführt, denn bei genauem Hinschauen ist (außer bei der Einordung bei diversen Buchläden) nirgendwo die Rede von Krimi oder Thriller. 'Verräter wie wir' ist eine Lektüre, die zwar im Agentenmilieu spielt und gegen Ende einen eindrucksvollen Spannungsbogen aufweist, aber dennoch nicht mehr oder weniger als ein Roman. Also schickte ich meine Erwartungen in die Wüste und begann nochmal von vorn. Und siehe da....
      Perry und Gail, ein wohl recht typisch britisches, linksliberales Pärchen mit einer eher skeptischen Haltung gegenüber den staatlichen Institutionen, lernen in einem Urlaub einen russischen Oligarchen kennen, der sie unversehens zu seinen Vertrauten kürt. Plötzlich finden die Beiden sich wieder in der Rolle als Mittler zwischen dem britischen Geheimdienst und einem potentiellen russischen Überläufer.
      LeCarré verwendet viele Seiten auf die genaue Darstellung der einzelnen Personen, inbesondere auf die seiner beiden Protagonisten Gail und Perry. Es gelingt ihm bravourös, nicht nur sehr detailliert sondern auch voller Witz die Eigenheiten und Widersprüchlichkeiten der Handelnden darzustellen. Wie Perry beispielsweise, der ewige Kritiker und Verächter der britischen Politik, der sich plötzlich als inoffizieller Geheimdienstmitarbeiter wiederfindet - und es wider Erwarten geniesst. Oder Dima, der russische Oligarch, der England liebt und bewundert und alle britischen Literaturklassiker besitzt, ohne vermutlich einen einzigen davon gelesen zu haben. Dies alles ist zudem in einer wunderbaren Sprache verfasst, über die man sich auf jeder Seite auf's Neue freut.
      Weshalb dann trotzdem nicht die volle Punktzahl? Weil bis zur ca. der Hälfte des Buches die Menge der Perspektivenwechsel etwas überhand nimmt. In einem Gespräch mit dem Geheimdienst, das bis dorthin die Rahmenhandlung darstellt, berichten Gail und Perry über ihre Begegnung mit Dima. Hierbei werden Rück- und Einblicke auf und in die Lebensläufe der Beteiligten eingeschoben, wobei der Großteil dieser einzelnen Abschnitte meist nicht mehr als 4-6 Seiten umfasst, sodass zumindest der Beginn etwas unübersichtlich wirkt .
      Aber abgesehen von dieser kleinen Mäkelei: grandiose Unterhaltung mit (wahrscheinlich) durchaus realistischen Einblicken in das schmutzige Geldwäschergeschäft.
    • 4/5
      When the Cold War ended one might have been forgiven to think the John le Carre’s career as a writer of the spy novel might have come crashing down along with the Berlin wall. Rest assured, in ‘Our Kind of Traitor’ le Carre shows us that the Russian spy novel is alive and well for the twenty-first century.

      Born to the ranks of the British upper middle-class Perry Makepiece, an English literature tutor at Oxford College and his long-standing girlfriend, Gail, the “sparky young barrister on the rise” take a brief vacation in Antigua to consider their future and play a little tennis. Their holiday is rudely interrupted by Dima from Perm, and his accompanying Russian family, who leeches on to the Brits and take over their time and their tennis.

      Dima makes Perry an offer he can’t refuse. He wants to rat out his fellow Russian crooks to the British government to get his family and since Perry, who is labeled Professor by this Russian money launderer, is “goddam fair-play English” Dima chooses him to pass on this information to the apparatchik’s of the British government.

      Upon returning home, Perry, against Gail’s better judgment, passes on the message to the service. Before they know it the pair are recruited and caught up in the “cut and thrust of high-stakes intrigue” becoming pawns in the hands of everyone they become involved with, be it their British masters, or the sweet innocent kids caught up in their Russian parent’s need for moral endeavor.

      Le Carre proves again to be the master of the understatement as his very British characters charge around Europe waiting, hiding their charges from the Russian gangsters that are trying to stop the traitor from passing on the secrets of the vory, and waiting on the government bureaucrats to cut through the red-tape so they can bring the goods home to spill his guts.

      With the authorities closing in on the illegals hiding out in the Swiss countryside, the family and their handlers start to come unhinged in their hideout, and with time running out le Carre swings the momentum like the pendulum in a grandfather clock until the grand finale.
    • 3/5
      A good spy thriller, with the usual, depressing, John Le Carre ending. What I enjoyed most was the nuts-and-bolts depiction of spycraft.
    • 2/5
      Perry Makepiece and his girlfriend Gail are upper-middle class nearly-thirty-somethings who spend a small inheritance on a once in a lifetime tennis holiday in Antigua. There, in (very) lengthy detail, they meet Dima, a Russian criminal with an extended family who challenges Perry to a tennis match as a cover for inveigling the pair in his plan to defect rather than be assassinated as he soon expects to be. Upon their return to England Perry, trying to shield Gail and her legal career from as much involvement as possible, informs the relevant spooks. So enter Tom, Dick and Harry (the code names the three spies use for a portion of the novel, I’m struggling to remember their real names or why they felt the need for this absurd subterfuge) after which everyone spends some time in a basement and then there's some more tennis.

      That synopsis, interspersed with snippets of Dima’s personal history as a member of the Russian criminal brotherhood, takes about 50% of the audio book to unfold which might give you an idea of the pace of this so-called thriller that slumbers along in second gear for its entirety. If I included the bizarre and disconnected sub plot about Dima's daughter's pregnancy to a climbing instructor but left out all the tedious tennis, spy-craft exposition and wallowing in indecision by the spooks, the remainder of the plot could easily be summarised in a single paragraph and then you could all save yourselves the bother of reading it at all. Even the extraordinarily abrupt ending is dull, as if the author was as tired with the whole thing as I was by then.

      Le Carré assures us that the money laundering and its links to the UK financial crisis at the heart of this novel is very real and I have no reason to doubt him But it doesn't matter how real the basis for the novel is if the author can't make me believe it and I didn't believe the premise for this novel for a single second. Nothing about the character of Dima, his choice of defection route or the use by the British secret services of a couple of randomly chosen amateurs for work like that felt remotely credible. Even if such things go on every day in the real world, le Carré didn't manage to make me believe it in his made up one. The 'instruction' of Perry and Gail seemed much closer to the spy games I played when I was eight (I got a spy kit for my birthday that year which included invisible ink and machines which my best friend and I used to send and receive coded messages that our respective brothers couldn't read) than to any real life espionage. I would have been unsurprised to see the cone of silence?

      The characters are the final let down of this 11 hour and 23 minute disappointment. In the past le Carré has been a master at creating intriguing people who leap of the page and demand to be investigated, absorbed and understood. Here the characters are all flat and kept at arm's length with emotions that seemed the same whether they were facing imminent death, the break-up of a marriage or the fact their cup of tea had grown cold. Tom, the oldest of the MI6 agents, is a poor imitation of le Carré's best-known, bureaucracy mastering creation George Smiley and Dima is a caricature of the evil Russian stereotypes of B grade movies. The rest of the characters have already faded from my mind.

      Listening to this book was like one, long yawn. Aside from an excellent narration and the fact that le Carré can still put words together in a way that is pleasing to a lover of the English language there is really nothing to recommend the thing at all. However, elsewhere on the ‘net reviews of the novel are split fairly evenly. If you do decided to read it I hope for your sake you're in the half of the population that has an entirely different reading experience to the one I had. But just in I suggest you take a pillow.
    • 4/5
      I loved this book right up until the end, where it just seemed to drop off a cliff. Did le Carre just get tired of writing this book? It has his usual well developed and complex characters is morally ambiguous situations. Well worth a read, even if I found it disappointing.
    • 4/5
      If ever I would want a writer to be immortal [or, at least to be able to send us new books from wherever we go when we die] it would be John LeCarre. I have never read a bad book by him. This one is no exception!
    • 3/5
      This book is very well written, it jumps between the characters lifes effortlessly. Your never sure who you can trust. Keeps you guessing what is going to happen. Glad I read this book.
    • 1/5
      Horrible spy novel. Uses only one sentence in a paragraph. Sentences are long winded. No fun to read.
    • 3/5
      The characters seemed more like caricatures, and the plot meandered and rather fizzled out. Not really a favourite
    • 3/5
      Well I enjoyed 2/3 of the book. The trouble is Le Carré didn't bother to write the other 1/3. I don't mind downbeat endings, and have got used to them in other recent le Carré novels, But this seemed more like he got bored with the book and characters and just finished it as fast as possible. In some ways it rather reminds me of childhood story writing - when I got rather confused by my own plot and/or bored of writing I would sign off "and then I woke up". Not that the plot is at all difficult to follow in this novel - rather it seems to be more about the characters, which is why the seeming loss of interest in them towards the end is such a let-down.
    • 4/5
      Not my favorite of his recent books, but still very good as expected. A little mellower and slower paced than many le Carre books, and I didn't love the ending, but overall very solid as always. One of my very favorite writers of all time.
    • 4/5
      LeCarre's cynicism runs deep, more so than I can recall in a while, right until the final betrayal. Throughout the read, I wondered who "our kind of traitor might be." Dima, the Russian career criminal; Perry, the academic and tennis player; Gail, his beautiful girlfriend and attorney; Luke, the compromised SIS agent; or Hector, running Dina's exfiltration operation. None of the above. It's England. One longs for George Smiley, but there apparently are none left in the lists. Just people with murky motivations, and some with noble virtues, mucking along as best they can against a system so corrupt they don't even realize it is. Our Kind of Traitor is a good read, more involving than A Most Wanted Man,The Constant Gardener, and The Tailor of Panama. I think LeCarre's hitting a new stride. Here's hoping his next novel continues in a long upward trajectory.
    • 4/5
      With Our Kind of Traitor John LeCarre has combined elements of crime and espionage fiction in one novel. A Russian money launderer meets a British couple in Antigua and expresses a desire to tell British Intelligence all he knows, which involves British politicians, in exchange for resettlement in England for himself and his extended family. The result is intrigue and betrayal at high levels. The characters are all exquisitely portrayed, the plot is crisp, and LeCarre leaves more questions than answers at the end, which is a nice change from a neatly wrapped package.
    • 4/5
      Le Carre back into the old style of writing. It's a short book, but slow and full of tension. Perry and Gina are innocent brits abroad. When they're approched on the tennis court by a friendly russian it's hard to say no. However the favour he asks for is stranger than they imagine, and soon they are meeting his widely extended family, of various 'uncles' and some very vulnerable children. Perry contacts some 'friends' in London, and the usual inter-agency squabbling ignites.I like le Carre's writing, although he is not very direct when it comes to making his point, a lot of his more recent work is enjoyably cycnical regarding the operation of modern governement, and businesses. This is another such installment. From the final third of the book on you know what is going to happen, you read each page engrossed waiting for the shoe to drop, waiting, and waiting. Like the true masterteller he is, with empecable timing, does Le Carre deliever the ending you bothe expected and feared.However this bvook doe slack the complexity of many of his better works, you only get to see one side of the argument, the assupmtions about the other, are all left to the reader. And while obvious, it doesn't provide the grey moral ambiguities that make a book superb. Likewise all the political infighting occurs behind closed doors, only the results are imparted by the boss to his leutenants. Although Gail and Perry start out well, they too quickly lose their qualms and end up devoting far too much of their time to a problem that they'd agreed was not any of their business. I could have understood this if they'd acted a bit more indeceive. But they don't. Overall, le Carre is not at his very best form in this one, but it's still enjoyable, and far from bad.