John le Carré - A Most Wanted Man

Review by Malcolm Martland on show sept 2009.
From the first I was impressed with the ease of John le Carré’s style in this novel. I found it so much more digestible than that of his earlier novels like Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy or the Honourable Schoolboy – either that or I’m just getting to be a seasoned reader of his works.

The novel is set in Hamburg and revolves around a Scottish private banker, Tommy Brue, who inherited the bank from his father - Edward Amadeus Brue – and relocated from Vienna to Hamburg. Tommy Brue also inherited a number of special types of account: the “Lipizzaners” so called because like the famous horses at the Spanish Riding School of Vienna, the money starts out black and turns white becoming laundered with age. These accounts were instituted by his father as a means for corrupt Soviet officials to move money out from behind the Iron Curtain during the collapse of Communism. Only one account remains and when a claimant appears Tommy Brue is quite relieved that the last dodgy account is to go but also anxious about where he stands legally.

The would-be claimant is Issa Karpov an emaciated, illegal Chechen muslim immigrant, Issa Karpov, who persuades a Turkish family to take house him after stalking the son for a few days. When he is asleep, he sleeps for days, the son finds $500 in new notes in a pouch he carries around his neck – and also a key and a paper bearing a number – of course these turn out to be a safe deposit box for a numbered account.
Issa is wanted in his homeland, in Sweden from where he was smuggled in and he has certainly woken up the secret services in the UK, US and Germany who feel he is a high risk terrorist. Butu hidden away by his Turkish hists he enlistst the aid of human rights lawyer Annabel Richter who in turn involves Tommy Brue, the banker holding the account containing some ($12.2 million). A deranged Issa wants to see the money given to good causes but also wishes to qualify as a doctor to help those back home.

Fearing they have been observed Annabel moves Issa to an apartment she is having created in an old warehouse but the German secret Service get to her. Likewise the British intelligence knobble Tommy Brue – who is only to keen to help. Instead of arresting him under suspicion of terrorism the combined secret services use Issa unbeknowingly to bait a trap in which a renowned Islamic cleric and activist who is described as 95% good is lured to see what happens to the money destined for the 5% bad causes.

Inevitably Tommy Brue falls in love with Annabel, Annabel falls in love with Issa, Issa loves only his god and the secret services love no-one at all.

A gripping and thrilling read with an unexpected – or maybe totally expected – ending.
Malcolm Martland 10 September 2009