Absolute Friends
Absolute Friends by John le Carre, published by Little, Brown on November 10, 2004, is a reprint edition comprising 455 pages. This novel follows Mundy, a tour guide in southern Germany, as he navigates financial struggles and reflects on his past service to his country. His life takes a turn when he reconnects with Sasha, an old friend and fellow spy, who introduces him to a mysterious billionaire philanthropist named Dimitri. The narrative explores themes of loyalty and betrayal against a backdrop that spans from the 1960s in West Berlin to contemporary issues of terrorism.
Readers will find a complex tale that delves into the motivations and moral dilemmas faced by Mundy and Sasha as they confront the implications of accepting aid from Dimitri. The story raises questions about the nature of friendship and the costs of ambition, set against the historical context of espionage and political turmoil. With elements of suspense and intrigue, Absolute Friends presents a thought-provoking examination of the characters’ choices and the shadows of their pasts, making it a significant addition to le Carre’s body of work.
Official synopsis Publisher
A “stunningly timely spy novel” that takes readers from 1960s West Berlin to the Iraq War (Entertainment Weekly) from the author of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy and The Spy Who Came In From the Cold.
Today, Mundy is a down-at-the-heels tour guide in southern Germany, dodging creditors, supporting a new family, and keeping an eye out for trouble while in spare moments vigorously questioning the actions of the country he once bravely served. And trouble finds him, as it has before, in the shape of an old German student friend, radical, and onetime fellow spy, the crippled Sasha, seeker after absolutes, dreamer, and chaos addict. After years of trawling the Middle East and Asia as an itinerant university lecturer, Sasha has yet again discovered the true, the only, answer to life — this time in the form of a mysterious billionaire philanthropist named Dimitri. Thanks to Dimitri, both Mundy and Sasha will find a path out of poverty, and with it their chance to change a world that both believe is going to the devil. Or will they? Who is Dimitri? Why does Dimitri’s gold pour in from mysterious Middle Eastern bank accounts? And why does his apparently noble venture reek less of starry idealism than of treachery and fear? Some gifts are too expensive to accept. Could this be one of them? With a cooler head than Sasha’s, Mundy is inclined to think it could.
In Absolute Friends, John le Carre delivers the masterpiece he has been building to since the fall of communism: an epic tale of loyalty and betrayal that spans the lives of two friends from the riot-torn West Berlin of the 1960s to the grimy looking-glass of Cold War Europe to the present day of terrorism and new alliances. This is the novel le Carre fans have been waiting for, a brilliant, ferocious, heartbreaking work for the ages.
“A searing, startling novel that sweeps through much of the twentieth century and up to the present conflict with Iraq.” –Lev Grossman, Time
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