Book Review: The Mission Song, by John le Carré

A very British African working for Queen and Country finds out that politics is dirty on every continent.

Little, Brown and Company, 2006, 352 pages

Hailed everywhere as a masterpiece of suspense, John le Carré's return to Africa is the story of Bruno Salvador (aka Salvo), the 25-year-old orphaned love child of an Irish missionary and a Congolese woman. Quickly rising to the top of his profession as an interpreter, Salvo is dispatched by British Intelligence to a top-secret meeting between Western financiers and East Congolese warlords, where he hears things not meant for his ears - and is forced to interpret matters never intended for his reawoken African conscience. By turns thriller, love story, and comic allegory of our times, THE MISSION SONG recounts Salvo's heroically naïve journey out of the dark of Western hypocrisy and into the heart of lightness.

( Dirty deeds done dirt cheap, especially in the Congo. )

Verdict: A great contemporary espionage/political thriller with complex, conflicted characters and deeply resonating themes. The Mission Song is not a perfect novel (suffering from just a bit of predictability and main character obtuseness), but it's close to perfection if you like a good story and good characters in the murky, ugly real world of neo-colonial politics.

Also by John le Carré: My review of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

Book Review: The Mission Song, by John le Carré

A very British African working for Queen and Country finds out that politics is dirty on every continent.

Little, Brown and Company, 2006, 352 pages

Hailed everywhere as a masterpiece of suspense, John le Carré's return to Africa is the story of Bruno Salvador (aka Salvo), the 25-year-old orphaned love child of an Irish missionary and a Congolese woman. Quickly rising to the top of his profession as an interpreter, Salvo is dispatched by British Intelligence to a top-secret meeting between Western financiers and East Congolese warlords, where he hears things not meant for his ears - and is forced to interpret matters never intended for his reawoken African conscience. By turns thriller, love story, and comic allegory of our times, THE MISSION SONG recounts Salvo's heroically naïve journey out of the dark of Western hypocrisy and into the heart of lightness.

( Dirty deeds done dirt cheap, especially in the Congo. )

Verdict: A great contemporary espionage/political thriller with complex, conflicted characters and deeply resonating themes. The Mission Song is not a perfect novel (suffering from just a bit of predictability and main character obtuseness), but it's close to perfection if you like a good story and good characters in the murky, ugly real world of neo-colonial politics.

Also by John le Carré: My review of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.