The story of the Libyan terrorist and the Corey couple continues. And even if you missed the previous book by Nelson DeMille, like I did, you won’t feel lost because everything is well explained. The problem, however, is that the beginning of The Lion is mostly from the perspective of the scumbag Asad Khalil, who is an even more fanatical terrorist than the usual breed, and cares about nothing but killing. Seriously. Nothing else.
By about a third of the way through The Lion, you start getting fed up with Khalil indiscriminately slaughtering his remaining enemies from the previous book, as well as his own associates to prevent them from identifying him. This excessive caution is SOMEWHAT contradicted by the fact that the mischievous Khalil calls the police for fun to taunt them. Plus, the police already have a ton of files on him.
On top of that, Khalil even takes on a job from Al Qaeda, although he leaves it for last, after dealing with his personal matters. Sure. („Never mind, Khalil”, his comrades at Al Qaeda might say, „take care of your business, it’s no issue if they start a nationwide manhunt against you, 6-star wanted level. No problemo, we can always detonate our bomb later!” – And these poor Al Qaeda guys don’t even realize Khalil has this aversion to witnesses. Thanks a lot for that kind of help!)
Yes, I know, don’t even say it, you’re among those discerning, cultured consumers of spy novels who could vomit at the mere mention of Le Carré’s oeuvre. Like the author of these lines, who intentionally avoided reading Le Carré for 15 years to spare himself… he had had enough of the baroque over-craftiness, the snobbish, pinkie-finger-raised delicacies, or simply the plain, dull boredom (The Tailor of Panama, uh?) that the author tried to cram into his books under the guise of literature. Brrr.
So, what now? The years just passed like minutes, and suddenly you stumble upon The Night Manager, which you can’t give a rating lower than 8.5. What’s this, did the guy learn to write in his old age? Yes. No, because you realize that The Night Manager was created in 1993, so you’re utterly lost.
Anyway, let’s leave that. So, The Little Drummer Girl. There’s this Arab dude in this book who blows up EVERYONE in Europe. I mean everyone, nobody’s safe, especially if they’re Jewish. So, the other Jews in Israel declare a fatwa on him, which means he’s done for. Yeah, but he’s not done for, not yet, because they can’t find him anywhere, he’s always hiding from them. He only shows up when he feels like blowing things up. What a scumbag! So what should they do? They decide to get him a girl!
There you go, you can describe the essence of The Little Drummer Girl this easily, without any unnecessary frills or embarrassing efforts. And what’s in this book? Well, unnecessary frills. It’s full of them! Overwriting, meandering, and insider know-it-all-ness.
“Of the kidnapping, little need he said.”
– this shameless author lies to your face, then there are seven (IN SMALL PRINT) pages about kidnapping. He’s deliberately messing with you, I tell ya!
Because of this, you squirm uncomfortably while reading, especially at the beginning… then slowly but surely, bugger it, you get used to this sarcastic, entertaining cynicism. And you start to like it in “The Little Drummer Girl.”
True, the story eerily resembles Daniel Silva’s Gabriel Allon novels (or rather that one resemble this, whoops, see: The Other Woman by Daniel Silva), with the difference that his books are not cursed with such verbosity. However, it’s now clear that they all came straight out of Le Carré’s cloak.
Perhaps this is the first spy novel I’ve read that is not unequivocally biased towards the Israelis. Silva would personally slap all the Palestinians if he could. A significant part of Le Carré’s book deals with the situation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Then you look it up and realize, by Jehoshaphat!, this book is from 1983; nearly 40 years have passed, and the situation of the Palestinians is still more or less the same. And you also realize that maybe, Le Carré writes better books as you read them backwards in time. Because “The Little Drummer Girl,” for example, has aged incredibly well, it could easily deny thirty years from its current age. Perhaps even more.
Of course, you know who’s going to fall in love with whom, and you suspect what the poor response will be – if everyone survives. The Israeli intelligence chiefs are clueless idiots (this, perhaps, is the only not too believable moment in the book).
However, you watch with envy as Joseph meticulously (and patiently, like a spider) strings Charlie along (she’s the girl they intend for the Arab guy. But they really just want to screw him over. Yeah, only the Arab guy.)
Just the recruitment alone takes half a book. From then on, everything gets more exciting. And against Charlie, the author dares to depict her as a light-hearted, back-and-forth romping alley cat – while, listen!, he manages to make you genuinely like her. How on earth does he pull that off?!
If you’re looking for action, The Little Drummer Girl is not your book. But if you enjoy leisurely planning, intricate maneuvers, and a series of intrigues, then you’ll have a great time with this sparklingly intelligent, cheekily chattering classic spy novel.
8.5/10
The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré 560 pages, Paperback Published in 2018 by Penguin Books Canada
