Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre

It was a great synchronicity that this popped up on one of my reading lists when it did, as one of my gaming groups was about to embark on a game of Cold City, set in post-War Berlin, playing representatives of different countries in BPRD-like surroundings.

But my spycraft is sadly lacking, so reading Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy was a nice way to get a tiny bit of the taste, although this book takes place later in time, and only in England. I enjoyed it both for the story, and for the atmosphere.

I did have some difficulties with the writing at times, though. I found it difficult to tell sometimes whether something was a flashback, a story recounted, or in the present. I often had to stop and go back a few pages to try to figure it out, and still had difficulty. If this was le Carre deliberately trying to blend the past and the present to make the point that they are inextricable, good job. If it was just a sign of sloppy writing, not so good.

Also, if you get this in a later edition, don't read the foreword le Carre added. If you're paying attention, he pretty much gives away who the mole is.

But this novel does a good job of showing a treacherous world, in which anyone you speak to could be a double agent, and is fascinating in how it explores how you would track a mole without letting him know that you're doing so. (Particularly given that you're not sure who he is.) The claustrophobia and constant tensions are well elucidated.

A Palm for Mrs. Pollifax by Dorothy Gilman

I returned to this book this past week, as one of the best comfort reads I know. When the world is overwhelming, this series has been one of my best refuges, one of my favourite fictional universes to escape into when I have no energy to go anywhere new. (Other comfort reads include L.M. Montgomery, Robertson Davies and Spider Robinson books.)

Whether it was a few years ago when I was struggling with insomnia and anxiety before my comps, or this past week, when I was all knotted up after one of our cats had two successive seizures, the Mrs. Pollifax books comfort me.

And they're just so much darn fun. Rereading this for the umpteenth time, I enjoyed it as thoroughly as if it had been the first time. She's an elderly spy for the CIA, you see, and these books are wonderful tales of her adventures. They always send her on missions that should be simple and safe, yet never are. And she is always wholly herself as she has to deal with what goes wrong.

In this one, Mrs. Pollifax is sent to a rest spa in France, where alarming chatter gives this charming locale as a potential receiving spot for two recent thefts of plutonium. Once there, she annoys Interpol by seeming more interested in the wellbeing of a young boy than the mysterious Robin Burke-Jones, whose background checks out not a whit. Of course, her instincts are perfectly sound, and she suddenly finds herself in the middle of a cat and mouse game with the fate of nuclear materials at stake.

While I never like the circumstances that often drive me back to these books, I love that I know I can pick them up any time and spend some time with an old friend, just when I need the most soothing.

The Third Man & The Fallen Idol by Graham Greene

This is a slim little book, but the two stories in it pack quite a wallop. One, is, of course, the more famous, the basis for The Third Man movie. The other was also made into a movie, but is not as well known.

Interestingly, according to the foreword, The Third Man started life as a movie project, but Graham Greene found he had to write it out in story format in order to write the script. There are also differences between the story and the film, including the ending. I don't know what that means, in practice, as I haven't seen the movie yet. Hopefully that will be rectified soon.

In The Third Man, naive and somewhat blustering western writer, Rollo Martins (whose pen name is Buck Dexter) comes to Vienna after the Second World War, on the invitation of his friend Harry Lime, who promises him an opportunity to make some money. But he gets there only to attend Harry's funeral, and to be plunged into a morass Harry left behind.

The head of the American police force in divided Vienna accuses Lime of some pretty nasty dealings, but Martins is fairly sure that his old school friend could not possibly be guilty of anything so sordid. But as Martins is pulled deeper in to the mystery of Harry's life and death, all sorts of illusions will be shot and fall to the floor.

Having just come off a game of over a year of Cold City, set in Cold War Berlin, this setting both felt familiar and exciting. The divided city aspects reminded me of our game, and I enjoyed watching those international politics play out over very grubby issues.

In The Fallen Idol, a small boy is thrust into the middle of a war between adults, and has little comprehension of the ways he's being pulled and manipulated, and at the end, makes a gesture that determines the fate of his best friend in the world.

The Fallen Idol is not quite as intriguing a piece as The Third Man, but was still very enjoyable. This book did not take long to (re)read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of my friends tried to borrow it before I was done, so I've already passed it along.