Over the course of his seemingly irreproachable life, Magnus Pym has been all things to all people: a devoted family man, a trusted colleague, a loyal friend—and the perfect spy. But in the wake of his estranged father’s death, Magnus vanishes, and the British Secret Service is up in arms. Is it grief, or is the reason for his disappearance more sinister? And who is the mysterious man with the sad moustache who also seems to be looking for Magnus?
A Perfect Spy, John le Carré
Immersive, almost meditative listening, I started John le Carre's A PERFECT SPY in Audio version recently, and was amazed by it. Partly a spy thriller, but really it's a character study in two parts. Magnus Pym, a young boy growing up with a con-artist for a father, who has become a successful officer in British Intelligence, marrying a fellow member of the service, having his own child, disappearing, holed up in a second life, in a bed and breakfast, with a new identity and an alleged book to write. The other the story of a con-man father, Rick, a man of huge appetites, mostly for the dodgy, a spectral figure that dashes in and out of the life of young Magnus, leaving confusion and chaos in his wake, adored by his son, never quite understood by that same son, leaving a legacy that's impossible to define.
Meanwhile, as the blurb explains, the grown up Magnus has vanished, leaving all sorts of questions behind him - who is he, who was he, who owns him, who trained him, what's he up to? I love this line from it "the reader joins Pym's pursuers to explore the unsettling life and motives of a man who fought wars he inherited with the only weapons he knew, and so became a perfect spy." Shadows and secrets, deceit and deceptions abound, brilliant listening as it quietly, almost hypnotically sucked in this listener to the point where it became absolutely addictive, in a low key, understated, deceptive way.