'The book breathes life, anger and excitement' Observer
Tessa Quayle, a brilliant and beautiful young social activist, has been found brutally murdered by Lake Turkana in Nairobi. The rumours are that she was faithless, careless, but her husband Justin, a reserved, garden-loving British diplomat, refuses to believe them. As he…
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Why read it?
5 authors picked
The Constant Gardener as one of their favorite
books. Why do they recommend it?
Robert Craven
Author
Published in 2001, The Constant Gardener is my favorite le Carre Novel. A British diplomat in Nairobi, Justin Quayle, is informed his activist wife, Tess has been killed in a remote part of Kenya along with a doctor friend. As Quayle investigates her life (in a similar way to Eric Ambler unfolds Dimitrios’s life), he uncovers her work exposing large pharmaceutical companies’ unethical experiments in the poorest regions of Africa. This leads to her brutal death and cover-up at a diplomatic and political level. It is an exceptional book that makes you rethink how medicine and the industry behind it…
This is a thriller that took me somewhere I never expected (Kenya) and highlighted an enemy I hadn’t encountered before (Big Pharma). Until then, I had grown used to individuals and assassins being the antagonists in political thrillers when I first picked this up. Le Carré makes the Three Bees corporation at the heart of the corruption and cover-up and murder truly chilling.
One needn’t require a gun to prove menacing. Le Carré showed me that all you need is money and power.
I fully support the theme of this novel, the moral imperative of fighting injustice even when the odds are overwhelmingly against you, even when it is not officially your job.
In this thriller novel, an ordinary man discovers that the murder of his activist wife is somehow connected to a sinister conspiracy involving the global pharmaceutical industry. He is a simple man whose main passion in life is gardening, yet his moral outrage compels him to undertake an investigation for which he has no training or expertise.
I admire this character’s courage in the face of adversity, his perseverance in…
I lived in Latin America for six years, working as a red cross volunteer, a volcano hiking guide, a teacher, and an extra in a Russian TV series (in Panama). Having travelled throughout the region and returning regularly, I’m endlessly fascinated by the culture, history, politics, languages, and geography. Parallel to this, I enjoy reading and writing about the world of international espionage. Combining the two, and based on my own experience, I wrote my novel, Magical Disinformation, a spy novel set in Colombia. While there is not a huge depth of spy novels set in Latin America, I’ve chosen five of my favourites spy books set in the region.
This book is a spy novel with a satirical edge which will take you on a heart-pumping journey through the streets, mountains, jungles, and beaches of Colombia. Our Man in Havana meets A Clear and Present Danger.
In the era of ‘fake news’ in the land of magical realism, fiction can be just as dangerous as the truth...
Discover Lachlan Page’s Magical Disinformation: a spy novel with a satirical edge set amongst the Colombian peace process. Described by one reviewer as “Our Man in Havana meets A Clear and Present Danger.”
Oliver Jardine is a spy in Colombia, enamoured with local woman Veronica Velasco.
As the Colombian government signs a peace agreement with the FARC guerrillas, Her Majesty’s Government decides a transfer is in order to focus on more pertinent theatres of operation.
Le Carré’s triumphant skewering of modern capitalist exploitation of Africa. Bringing his genius in exploring betrayal and the politics of what people choose to do and see or not see to get by every day to an exploration of modern exploitation. A passionately angry page-turner with a complex plot and deep humanity.
Le Carre is one of the greats, for me, he is the perfect blend of great plot choices, dialogue, and brilliantly succinct description. This book is classic Le Carre, set in and around the emotional labyrinth of the British High Commission in 1980s Nairobi, the murder of a promiscuous young wife of a British diplomat leads to corporate corruption involving the Aids pandemic and big Pharma. As an author, Carre has always taught me the importance of in-depth characterisation and solid back-story. No one has written so grippingly about male menopause and the existentially exhausted world of post-colonial British spydom.…
