Friday 6 April 2018

A Small Town in Germany by John le Carré (My Goodreads Review)

A Small Town in Germany: A Novel

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Leo Harting in a low-grade admin worker at the British Embassy in Bonn, West Germany. It is about 1968 and there is political turmoil in Germany and also for Britain. Britain is trying to win favour with the German Federal Government with its application for Common Market membership. (Boy how the worm has turned in this day and age.) Leo has gone missing. So have a batch of top secret documents. One of them labelled green. Evidently, a green file is highly sensitive.

Back in the UK, a Foreign Office worker named Alan Turner is sent to find Leo Harding and, most important, try to collect the missing documents. Alan Turner is not liked by most who work around him. He is a Yorkshireman who can be abrupt and direct. He has no graces and does not fit well among diplomats. But then it is not necessary to like Turner. So long as he can get a job done. That's the Foreign Office point of view. The diplomats of the British Embassy in Bonn have a very different outlook. Another fine story from the master. If you like John Le Carre stories; you'll enjoy this gripping mystery.



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