The Little Drummer Girl
Charlie is not a spy; she is a left-wing actress in London who believes she is too clever to be used. Israeli intelligence disagrees. Le Carré constructs the novel as a slow entrapment, moving Charlie from sympathetic Palestine solidarity to an operation she can no longer distinguish from her own desires. The handler, Joseph, is as much seducer as case officer, and the target, Khalil, is never reduced to mere villainy.The prose is patient to the point of cruelty: long train journeys, dead drops, rehearsals within rehearsals. This Knopf edition holds the full machinery of a plot that asks whether political conviction can survive its own performance. For readers who believe that the most convincing performances are the ones the actor no longer knows are performances.
