| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : MARCH 15, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| BOOKS
Rough Russians SINGLE & SINGLE A Novel By John Le Carre Scribner 345pp $26 Since the Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the cold war ended, John Le Carre has seemed to be adrift. Without the Evil Empire as a focal point, his later novels have lacked the chill of imminent peril that made The Spy Who Came In From the Cold one of the greatest espionage tales of all time. In Single & Single, Le Carre returns to Russian turf after recent excursions to Panama and Switzerland. But now, the Soviet Union has faded, and its underworld has replaced the Red Army and nuclear annihilation as globally destabilizing forces. While the book doesn't pack the paranoiac punch of his classic works, it is elegantly written--and thought-provoking. Le Carre's rough-hewn Georgian gangsters exploit their connections to export anything--weapons-grade nuclear material, land mines, cluster bombs, tanks, heroin, even the blood of their countrymen--to turn a buck. Standing in their way (and playing the role once assigned to spymaster George Smiley) is Nat Brock, a brooding British customs officer-cum-spook who is determined to stamp out this Russian crime wave. Caught in the crossfire--literally, it turns out--is Oliver Single, scion of the House of Single, a London investment bank whose specialty is financing deals for the Russian mob and laundering the proceeds in Switzerland, Turkey, and God knows where else. ''Dollar bills, pounds, deutsche marks, yen, francs--baskets, suitcases, trunks full,'' writes Le Carre, ''not a question asked!'' While it focuses on global crime, Single & Single is just as much a study of a young man's relationship with an overbearing father. In Tiger Single, founder of his eponymous bank, Le Carre describes a successful dealmaker whose unquenchable need to prove his mettle leads him deeper and deeper into amoral conduct. It is Oliver's deep repulsion for his father's behavior that causes him to have an epiphany at London's Heathrow Airport one day, after flying home from a visit to Tiger's Russian mob client. On the spur of the moment, he demands to see a senior customs official, turns informer for Brock, and brings down the mob and his father's bank. Oliver then attempts to fade into the countryside with a new name and cover story. But soon, he is forced to emerge from hiding and seek personal revenge on the mob--and eventual reconciliation with his father--when he discovers that Tiger has been kidnapped by his angry clients. Readers who are looking for intimate details describing the worlds of London dealmaking or international money-laundering will be disappointed by Single & Single. The novel is a more intimate tale of anguish and betrayal, enlivened by colorful descriptions of the gangsters' mountain hideouts and taut moments of terror. The opening sequence, in which Tiger's lawyer surreally describes his own assassination on a Turkish hilltop by mobsters seeking to avenge their undoing, is perhaps the most chilling passage Le Carre has ever written. It's a fast start for a solid story of crime and punishment. BY WILLIAM GLASGALL _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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