The Night Manager

A Novel

By: John le Carré

Narrated by: David Case

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK • AMC Miniseries event April 19 Tues 10/9c

John le Carré, the legendary author of sophisticated spy thrillers, is at the top of his game in this classic novel of a world in chaos. With the Cold War over, a new era of espionage has begun. In the power vacuum left by the Soviet Union, arms dealers and drug smugglers have risen to immense influence and wealth. The sinister master of them all is Richard Onslow Roper, the charming, ruthless Englishman whose operation seems untouchable. Slipping into this maze of peril is Jonathan Pine, a former British soldier who’s currently the night manager of a posh hotel in Zurich. Having learned to hate and fear Roper more than any man on earth, Pine is willing to do whatever it takes to help the agents at Whitehall bring him down—and personal vengeance is only part of the reason why.

Praise for The Night Manager

“A splendidly exciting, finely told story . . . masterly in its conception.”—The New York Times Book Review

“Intrigue of the highest order.”—Chicago Sun-Times

“Richly detailed and rigorously researched . . . Le Carré’s gift for building tension through character has never been better realized.”—People

“Grimly fascinating, often nerve-wracking, and impossible to put down.”—Boston Herald

Critic reviews

“A brilliant performance.”
–The New York Times Book Review

“Wonderful . . . beautifully done . . . compelling.”
–The Wall Street Journal

“A beautifully polished, utterly knowing, and palpitating book.”
–Time

“Intrigue of the highest order.”
–Chicago Sun-Times

Narration actually great

I was concerned the narration would be unbearable, and Michael Jayston is the great, but this version was actually excellent, and the book a wonderful isolated tale!

Stop it please.

Couldn’t handle the narration. English accents sounded like the scarlet pimpernel. Way overdone and wrong texture

War is a racket.

"Every man has his personal devil waiting for him somewhere."
-- John le Carré, The Night Manager

"WAR is a racket. It always has been.

It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."
-- Major General Smedley Butler, 1935

After finishing le Carré's recent memoir The Pigeon Tunnel: Stories from My Life, I felt the need to climb a bit higher up on my le Carré mountain. Since BBC had recently dropped its 6 episode series of 'The Night Manager' and since it was one of the handful of le Carré I haven't read (I now have just four left: Our Game, The Naive and Sentimental Lover, The Tailor of Panama, and Absolute Friends). I felt this novel was a good place, as any, to re-start JlC. I loved it. It wasn't perfect, but it was a nice exploration of the guns for drug trade that went on (and hell, probably still goes on) with tacit approval of arms producing nations (see UK, US, etc). Like most of le Carré's oeuvre it contains bureaucratic turf battles and isolated groups and individuals fighting for ideals in a corrupted world.

The book is set in the late 80s or early 90s (it was published in 1993), so I think of this as le Carré examining the underworld we didn't exactly get to see when Oliver North was testifying/obfuscating about his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Here, as always, le Carré is focused more on the UK's involvement and private arms dealing in this book. This book has received renewed attention since the 2015 BBC adaption staring Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie. The adaption moves the time frame up (lucky for the adaption, arms dealing and government complicity in this ugly economy is almost timeless) to the period right around the Arab Spring.

Great one!

Wow , what a story made more remarkable by the reading of David Case (Fredrick Davidson ).

Put la Carre’ in the hands ( voice acting) by Fredrick Davidson and you have a masterpiece.

I’m sorry Davidson didn’t read more of la Carre’s work...he can add so much versatility, depth and demention to a cast of characters , it’s mind dazzling.

This story, no top tier, is given a boost up the ladder of enjoyment by it’s interpreter. BRAVO !!!

Narration made it unbearable

Narration was overdone and made it unlistenable. Love LaCarre, have something like 10 of his audiobooks, this one is unlistenable.