I write this as a complete Carre enthusiast. His works are the top of literature, and yes, with Greene gone, he is the best in Britain. TTSS is alittle hard to get into, but it certainly grabs you by eyeballs once you meet Prideaux (that would be page...uh, 1?). I started reading it knowing who was the mole (The Secret Pilgrim is a spoiler), but that made it more enjoyable in the how-did-he-do-it sense. But if you want to get to know JLC, don't start here. Start with easier reading, such as The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, A Small Town In Germany, or Our Game, or my all-time favourite The Night Manager. Got it? Good. Spying is Waiting.

/Alec Corday

Let's face it. John's works (or should I say David's?)is not for everyone. Other reviewers suggested a pot of coffee to get through a chapter. Yes, if your particular area of interest in books lies with action-follow-action-follow-some-more-action-and-for-a-change-a-little-action, then JLC is not your writer. And if you're trying to get into JLC, for god's sake, don't start with The Perfect Spy. Almost made me quit. But Our Game, Night Manager, Russia House and Tailor of Panama are the top of his line and are to be enjoyed to the max...if you happen to like his slow but thorough character development. There is the old saying from Hitchcock that a movie is "life, with the boring parts cut out". John's art is in putting in the boring parts and making them sound interesting and the least bit exciting. I, for one, have fallen in love with Jed, got to know Dicky so well (can you see Roger Moore?), and leared to relate to Pine in so many ways, it's emberassing. I'm a writer myself, and if I maybe so bold, The Night Manager is my bible. Read it if you are taken aback by the fast-paced story lines of Clancy and his clones. Spying is waiting. Spying is taking in life, gruesome inch by gruesome inch, seeing characers rise and fall and be tossed half-dead into boats while evil sails on. Spying means that the only thing you will get after spending a day being a different version of yourself is love...and only maybe.

Oh, boy....see how JLC gets to you?

/Alec Corday

To set something straight... Steve is NOT a Tom Clancy whang-bang-action-military-spy-Jack-Ryan writer. If you only like the simple and blant entertainment that offers a Clancy/Pieczenik novel such as the utherly boring OP-Center series, then he is not for you. However, if you are the rare version of a reader who seeks smart, funny and highly inteligent readings, Steve is your buddy for live. His novel traverses in areas most people don't even concider, and subjects joe-six-pack thinks as strange. Drawing heavily on his past, Steve gives us one of his best performances since Pax Pacifica. He writes a lot about politics, gives us his opinions concerning democracy. In many ways SOE is not an adventure novel. It is a sociological and psycological study of what America really is, its values and downsides. Many people get a hard time, foremost the Mormons. But anyone who has a foothold in that area knows how very true his words are. I can only applaud his curage to name these subjects. However, on the downside I want to say that he sometimes submerges himself in long narrations of philosophy and the meaning of democracy at points when another subject is crucial. Example: his heroine floats towards a possible death and starts pondering about what faith really is and what all of his favourite Greek thinkers came up with along the years. I believe Steve's own esprit de finesse should have warned him of such faults. However, in face of such an excellent and well researched book I can only hope that his dreamed-up plot may never come true ... because it just might. And that is his magic. And no, Steve, you have not become a modern-day Cassandra, but rather a modern-day Greek philosopher, Homer or other, and I hope Birdie is well. But would you please replace the picture of you on the last page? It kills your image. {;-)