The Tailor of Panama

The Tailor of Panama by John le Carre is a spy novel. The Elder Son loaned it to me when he found out I had never read anything by this author. This is a clever take on the spy genre, very amusing.

There's a film based on it, and he loaned me that, too, to be watched after I finished the book.

from the back of the book:

He is Harry Pendel: Exclusive tailor to Panama's most powerful men. Informant to British Intelligence. The perfect spy in a country rife with corruption and revolution. What his "handlers" don't realize is that Harry has a hidden agenda of his own. Deceiving his friends, his wife, and practically himself, he'll weave a plot so fabulous it exceeds his own vivid imagination. But when events start to spin out of control, Harry is suddenly in over his head - thrown into a lethal maze of politics and espionage, with unthinkable consequences....

Entertainment Weekly gives it a B+ and concludes,

The satire finally gives way to sermonizing, and Graham Greene retains his title as literary champion of slippery ambiguity and furtive redemption, but Le Carré has, as usual, written a deftly subversive and delectably sour fictional confection.

Kirkus Reviews ends with this:

Le Carre goes back to the spy story's roots--Our Man in Havana, with a touch of Conrad's Secret Agent--to amuse frazzled millennialists with the refreshing news that we've all been here many times before.

The 2001 film stars Pierce Brosnan, Geoffrey Rush, Jamie Lee Curtis and Daniel Radcliffe in his film debut. We enjoyed this one. It was fun trying to figure out exactly when the Brosnan character guessed what was going on with the Rush character. By the time I watched the movie I'd actually forgotten how the book wrapped things up, which was very frustrating. The film is fairly faithful to the book, as well as I can remember, but I'm obviously not remembering very well.

trailer:



Roger Ebert closes with this: "The movie is abundant in its gifts, a pleasure for those who like a story to unfold lovingly over a full arc, instead of coming in short mindless bursts." Rotten Tomatoes gives it a score of 77%.