La casa Rusia

3.5

Le Carré's last book was his magnum opus, that's an impossible act to follow.

This was probably the weakest book of his I've read, but that also might be because of what preceded it. And it's still Le Carré, which means it's miles ahead of what most people can write.

Written in 1989 - not a banner year for the USSR - this is his first book explicitly dealing with Russia losing its superpower status compared to the USA. It's an interesting new status quo and gotta give credit to him for immediately exploring it.

Overall, it's fine, but more for the fanboys. Of which I am one.

I remember when genre novels had to be judged by a different standard than "regular" fiction. This book was (pardon the expression) awesome by any standard.

Rather topical at the time, (in terms of Iraq and its alleged weapons of mass destruction), with its plot of a Russian dissident who passes information to a British agent showing that the USSR's arsenal is completely unusable and therefore the West might as well stop all arms production; this however doesn't fit in with the requirements of the Western political-military-industrial complex so the news is suppressed. This was apparently made into a film a few years ago with Sean Connery in the role of Barley Blair, though I'd cast Bill Nighy in that role (as well as everything else, that he seems to be in at present).