Rating: 
Summary: Could not be more disappointed
Review: It had been a long time (over fifteen years) since I had last read a John LeCarre novel when I picked up this novel out of a bargain bin. Reading the story, I was reminded why I had gone so long without reading his books. Single and Single is not really a bad novel, but it is not a very exciting one either.The plot revolves around Oliver Single, son and partner of Tiger Single. Tiger is a wheeler and a dealer with a limited sense of ethics. Oliver's own ethics have caused him to betray his father to the law and go into hiding. When Tiger's life is threatened, however, Oliver re-emerges into society and searches for his father. For a story that deals with murder, betrayal and theft, there isn't all that much to excite. The characters are well-written but bland and the structure of the story is more complicated than it needs to be. I understand that LeCarre is supposed to be a master of the mundane spy story, but this is one tale that is a little too mundane and not masterful enough. For better works in the same field, I would recommend Len Deighton; once again, LeCarre has failed to impress me and it may be a long time again before I read another of his books.
Rating: 
Summary: A new and different Le Carre
Review: Single and Single portrays the consequences for Oliver Single after his crisis of conscience. Single is a trust lawyer, with his father, for an emerging Russian Mafia family. The novel thrusts Single into a cloak and dagger world where he attempts to rescue his estranged father, and uncover the conspiracy within the conspiracy of the Russia underworld. The novel maintains tight suspense, and yet addresses issues of personal ethics and family relations. The book is really a great read, the only drawback is the lack of development among woman's characters. This weakness has little impact on the story or the message, and like some others of Le Carre's books the main character propels the story into a thought provoking struggle between ideas, as much as a struggle between people.
Rating:
Summary: Blood will tell
Review: Le Carre's writing talents didn't tumble with The Berlin Wall's rubble. Since the fading of the Cold War, he's demonstrated his continuing ability to weave a plot and image people apart from those in the espionage game. In this book, the Russians are still with us, but in a whole new light - they're active capitalists trying to make a ruble. Any way they can. Flogging "clean Caucasoid blood" to the West is merely an opening gambit, but it's a start. In support of this immaculate enterprise, the financial house of Single is recruited for money management. Tiger Single, the senior partner, with his son Oliver, are set to reap a fortune. Certain events impair the smooth flow of cash, and the Russian partners turn to a new means of profit-making, drugs. As a lawyer in a financial management organization, Oliver draws the line at drugs. It jeopardizes the future of the firm, and his own. He informs on his father to government officials in the hope of cutting a deal. Like many other Le Carre novels, this one eschews a simple linear plot format. You are offered a thread to study, then another seemingly unrelated, one. You must carry the information you're given when other threads emerge. But Le Carre never leaves you hanging or lost. The threads begin to come together in the rich tapestry Le Carre is so talented at weaving. Nothing is inevitable, the twists are sometimes abrupt, but never implausible. There are no real weaknesses in this plot. Some of the characterization, however, seems a bit contrived, unusual in Le Carre. Although not an espionage novel, Le Carre draws Oliver as if he was a George Smiley operative. He goes to ground with amazing skill for a lawyer, his cover the performance of children's magic shows. Oliver maintains this role long enough to marry, bear a daughter and complete a divorce. He is "run" by a Brock who teaches him tradecraft, which in Oliver's case only requires some touching up, not attending the whole course. Oliver is loved or admired by more women than one man deserves - his landlady, a Russian gangster's wife and Aggie, one the Brock's agents. Somehow, given Aggie's role, this last seems the least plausible. As with other post-Cold War Le Carre novels, this one is as much education as entertainment. You close the last page but you find closing down the memories and topics more difficult. International blood traffic is a real issue, exactly as pharmaceuticals were in The Constant Gardner. The issues are real, the people mostly convincing, the events hidden from the public eye, but revealing in their likelihood. Any Le Carre novel is worth a read, some welcoming a revisit. Single and Single is one worth picking up again.
Rating:
Summary: Dull, repetitive and pointless
Review: Although the Cold War has long since faded into the history books, John Le Carre is still turning out good, well-written spy stories. You cannot use the term "potboiler" with a Le Carre book, although some of his more recent endeavors have come dangerously close to that level. Thankfully, "Single & Single" is not one of them. Since the KGB doesn't exist anymore, Le Carre must look elsewhere for the kind of story he writes like nobody else. And he's found it in the story of Oliver Single, the son and junior partner of a banking house whose owner and senior partner is a greedy, corrupt, and probably amoral (business)man who has gotten in way over his head by getting involved in the drug trade with some - shall we say, less than reputable - gentlemen from the former Soviet Union. As with most Le Carre novels, the story moves back, forth, and sideways between various parts of and characters within the same story. You have to flip back a few times to keep track of who's who and what's what, but that was part of the charm of the George Smiley/Karla series, and it's the same here. Unfortunately this book does suffer from the one flaw that exists in most of Le Carre's books - and that's an uncanny ability to turn its so-called action sequences into the dullest parts of the story. I actually enjoyed the back-and-forth between the characters more than I enjoyed what they did. But if this "flaw" were corrected, I think I'd actually like Le Carre less than I do. Weird, isn't it?
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