A Small Town in Germany (Paperback)

~ John le Carre (Author)
Key Phrases: emergency legislation, sports committee, chancery meeting, Hazel Bradfield, Green File, British Embassy (more...)

Editorial Reviews

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The Sunday Times (U.K.) John le Carré is at the peak of his form. -- Review

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The New York TimesExciting, compulsively readable, and brilliantly plotted.

New StatesmanBrilliant, unforgettable...a masterpiece.

The Sunday Times (U.K.)John le Carré is at the peak of his form.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (March 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743431715
• ISBN-13: 978-0743431712
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #159,610 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Novel, August 19, 2002

By	R. Albin (Ann Arbor, Michigan United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This might be Le Carre's most ambitious and best written book. It contains a host of well drawn characters and the clever plotting typical of all Le Carre's best work. As with his other good books, Le Carre uses the spy novel format to investigate matters well beyond the usual formulas of thrillers. This book is set in Bonn, in the late 50s or early 60s. Almost all the action takes place within the British embassy. The latter is depicted as a microcosm of British society, with its class, ethnic, and religous divisions, its repressions and emphasis on maintaining British prestige. This book is an allegory and devastating critique of British national policy in that period. Le Carre shows the insularity of British society, its inability to deal with reduction to a second-rate military and economic power, and its preference for preferring shabby deals maintaining British prestige to concrete achievements.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps Le carre's best..., August 18, 2001

By	Jay T. Segarra (Ocean Springs, MS United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A Small Town in Germany (Audio Cassette)

A fascinating plot, with characteristically rich character development. Even the minor players are drawn carefully, in, well, loving detail (the British ambassador's wife with the lovely arms (a la T.S. Eliot), the diplomat-asthete with the harpsichord he never quite gets around to playing, the Dutch diplomat who cruelly points out the historical inaccuracies in a guest's dinner polemic, etc. The end has a rather grand twist that causes the whole thing to linger in the mind for weeks after, like the "Spy Who Came in from the Cold". One of my favorite 20th century novels period.

13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, tight vintage Le Carre, especially for non-fans!, November 11, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: A Small Town in Germany (Paragon Softcover Large Print Books) (Paperback)

No Smiley, no Karla, Moscow Centre is only an unconfirmed shadow over the horizon as Le Carre takes his scalpel to a British mission under siege in Bonn somewhere in the undated late 50s/early 60s. The most visible threat is a rabble-rosuing demagogue who is stirring up German passions with talk of a Germany that is being trod all over by its conquerors (a tactic used in fact very successfully by an up-and-coming politician after the First War - I think his outfit was called the National Socialist Party!)

Among the usual undercurrents and tensions of the British mission - basically a for-export version of Whitehall, with all its petty intrigues and shallow secrets - there is mounting tension over an upcoming rally, the unexplained murder of the librarian of a British library that is actually a German library and the solicitiousness of a police chief whose concern rings as true as a shark's regard for a school of minnows. Against this backdrop they struggle to deal with, and keep quiet, the disappearance of a low-level staffer and some oh-so-critical files. London's man Turner starts cutting to the heart of the matter and finds that he needs no enemies outside the mission - the ones inside would do him nicely!

Sprebly plotted and with a *genuine* twist at the end, this is one of Le Carre's absolute best - it's Le Carre for those (like the present writer) who were intimidated by The Little Drummer Girl in infancy and never dared again!