Our Kind of Traitor by John le Carré

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A thrill to read, and fast paced. JLC at his finest.

John Le Carré has been writing memorable novels for decades, and God willing, will continue to do so for a few more.

In his latest novel, Our Kind of Traitor, Le Carré provides a tale of espionage that makes one cheer and hope for the villain to win, or at least survive.

Perry and his girlfriend, Gail, befriend Dima, a Russian money-launderer, in Antigua while on vacation.

Dima, recognizing Perry is from London, has motives to turn state evidence against his illegal enterprise and the Seven Brothers in dire hopes of saving himself and family from certain death.

But what makes this novel a Le Carré novel is the author’s ability to interweave various points of view into a seamless story line, while bringing each character to life through rich descriptions and telling dialogue.

In Our Kind of Traitor, Le Carré opts for the short and frequent point of view changes, one almost every other page, and it makes for a fast, gripping read.

In doing so, the action does most of the telling with reflection being summoned only at key points in the plot to allow the reader a chance to gather her bearings and ask the necessary questions that remain unanswered.

The short “snapshots” are as short as two paragraphs or as long as a few pages, just long enough to capture the scene in vivid detail and have the action channel the necessary information to its reader.

“The point, though,” Jerome Stern writes in Making Shapely Fiction, “is to let the snapshots do most of the telling” (50). Le Carré is a master at allowing the episodes or snapshots to do the telling.

 

CG FEWSTON is an American novelist who is a member of AWP, a member of Americans for the Arts, and a professional member and advocate of the PEN American Center, advocating for the freedom of expression around the world.

CG FEWSTON has travelled across continents and visited such places as Mexico, the island of Guam, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand, Taipei and Beitou in Taiwan, Bali in Indonesia, and Guilin and Shenzhen and Beijing in China. He also enjoys studying and learning French, Vietnamese, Cantonese and Mandarin.

CG FEWSTON earned an M.Ed. in Higher Education Leadership and Administration (honors), an M.A. in Literature (honors) from Stony Brook University, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Fiction from Southern New Hampshire University, where he had the chance to work with wonderful and talented novelists, such as Richard Adams Carey (author of In the Evil Day, October 2015; and, The Philosopher Fish, 2006) and Jessica Anthony (author of Chopsticks, 2012; and, The Convalescent, 2010) as well as New York Times Best-Selling novelists Matt Bondurant (author of The Night Swimmer, 2012; and, The Wettest County in the World, 2009, made famous in the movie Lawless, 2012) and Wiley Cash (author of A Land More Kind Than Home, 2013; and, This Dark Road to Mercy, 2014).

Among many others, CG FEWSTON’S stories, photographs and essays have appeared in Sediments Literary–Arts Journal, Bohemia, Ginosko Literary Journal, GNU Journal (“Hills Like Giant Elephants”), Tendril Literary Magazine, Prachya Review (“The One Who Had It All”), Driftwood Press, The Missing Slate Literary Magazine (“Darwin Mother”), Gravel Literary Journal, Foliate Oak Magazine, The Writer’s Drawer, Moonlit Road, Nature Writing, and Travelmag: The Independent Spirit; and for several years he was a contributor to Vietnam’s national premier English newspaper, Tuoi Tre, “The Youth Newspaper.”

You can read more about CG FEWSTON and his writing at

www.cgfewston.me & https://www.facebook.com/cg.fewston/ & https://hk.linkedin.com/in/cgfewston

A TIME TO LOVE IN TEHRAN won GOLD for Literary Classics’ 2015 best book in the category under ”Special Interest” for “Gender Specific – Female Audience”…

Finalist in the 2015 Chatelaine Awards for Romantic Fiction…

Finalist in the 2015 Mystery & Mayhem Novel Writing Contest…

Praise for A TIME TO LOVE IN TEHRAN:

“Fewston delivers an atmospheric and evocative thriller in which an American government secret agent must navigate fluid allegiances and murky principles in 1970s Tehran… A cerebral, fast-paced thriller.”

— Kirkus Reviews

“A TIME TO LOVE IN TEHRAN is a thrilling adventure which takes place in pre-revolutionary Tehran. Author CG FEWSTON provides a unique glimpse into this important historical city and its rich culture during a pivotal time in its storied past. This book is so much more than a love story. Skillfully paired with a suspenseful tale of espionage, A TIME TO LOVE IN TEHRAN is a riveting study of humanity. Replete with turns & twists and a powerful finish, FEWSTON has intimately woven a tale which creates vivid pictures of the people and places in this extraordinary novel.”

— LITERARY CLASSICS

CG FEWSTON‘s new novel,

A TIME TO LOVE IN TEHRAN, was published on April 2, 2015 —

10 years to the day of the publication

of his first novella, A FATHER’S SON (April 2, 2005)

“Thus one skilled at giving rise to the extraordinary

is as boundless as Heaven and Earth,

as inexhaustible as the Yellow River and the ocean.

Ending and beginning again,

like the sun and moon. Dying and then being born,

like the four seasons.”

found in Sources of Chinese Tradition, p 5