John le Carre · 1993 · thriller

John le Carre's 1993 novel, his first after the Cold War. A hotel night manager in Cairo passes on a document that gets a woman killed, and years later is recruited to work his way inside the organisation of the arms dealer responsible - a man described, without much exaggeration, as the worst in the world.

1. 1
   Cairo

   At the Queen Nefertiti in Cairo, Jonathan Pine copies a document a guest leaves in his safe - a shopping list of weapons - and hands it to British intelligence, after which the woman who gave it to him is murdered.

2. 2
   Zurich

   Years later, night manager of a Zurich hotel, Pine meets Richard Onslow Roper in person, and is recruited by a small unfashionable corner of Whitehall to be made into somebody Roper will want to employ.

3. 3
   Cornwall

   The legend is built in the West Country and Canada: a manufactured criminal record, a manufactured killing, a manufactured man - Pine dismantled and rebuilt over months by people who are themselves being outmanoeuvred in London.

4. 4
   Nassau

   Inside Roper's household in the Bahamas, Pine finds a private world of yachts, lawyers and a small son - and the arms deal being assembled around him is protected by parts of his own government that want it to happen.

5. 5
   Colon

   The deal is closed in Panama, where the weapons go one way and the drugs the other - and Pine's own service is by then more interested in protecting the operation than in him.