The Night Manager. by John le Carré

Individual greed takes the place of old world rivalries of great nations. Inside look at the international cartel of illegal arms dealers, and drug smugglers. Lays forth an understanding of paradoxes in our unquestioning perceptions between evil and virtue! Heavy reading at best; smashing thoughts!

Just to be upfront about it, I did not finish this book. This review is based on the first chapter.

I saw the Amazon series, and was intrigued.

I found the book to be sexist. Specifically, the main character – who I would imagine is meant to be the sympathetic hero – had sexist thoughts in an inner monologue. As a result, I had a difficult time engaging when I found the hero not redeeming in this way. Life is too short for such books, full of too many thrillers that don't have such issues, so I set it aside permanently.

More of a 3.5. Found chunks of it slow but got really absorbed in the majority of it. Was slightly hard to keep all the various British government officials straight.

Currently my least favorite le Carré novel. I like the realism of le Carré's other works–this one required a little too much suspension of disbelief, especially when it comes to the all-powerful Mr. Roper.

This is one of the rare cases where I found the characters in the miniseries (slightly) more sympathetic than those in the book. Why the hell did the BBC have to butcher a perfectly good ending?

Probably no more than a 2.5.

I have absolutely loved some of le Carre's books, but this felt unnecessarily drawn out for the simplicity of the actual plot.