Our Kind of Traitor
Play sample
  • Published: 1 August 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241967850
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $22.99

Our Kind of Traitor

Formats & editions
Paperback
1 Aug 2016
Hardback
1 Nov 2022
EBook
26 May 2011
EBook
22 Sep 2010
Audiobook
28 Nov 2024
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'Return of the master . . . Having plumbed the devious depths of the Cold War, le Carré has done it again for our nasty new age' The Times

An English couple, Perry and Gail, are taking an off-peak holiday on the Caribbean island of Antigua. By seeming chance they bump into a Russian millionaire called Dima who owns a peninsula and a diamond-encrusted gold watch. He also has a tattoo on his right thumb, and wants a game of tennis.

What else he wants propels the young lovers on a tortuous journey through Paris to a safe house in the Swiss Alps, to the murkiest cloisters of the City of London and its unholy alliance with Britain's Intelligence Establishment.
  • Published: 1 August 2016
  • ISBN: 9780241967850
  • Imprint: Penguin General UK
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 400
  • RRP: $22.99
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About the author

John le Carré

John le Carré was born in 1931. For six decades, he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the university of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5&6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel, A Legacy of Spies, appeared in 2017. He died on 12 December 2020. His posthumous novel Silverview was published in 2021.

portrait photo of John le Carré

Also by John le Carré

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
Karla's Choice
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
A Private Spy
Silverview
The Smiley Collection Boxset
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Praise for Our Kind of Traitor

A remarkable book by the master. Reading it is a great experience

Henning Mankell, Daily Telegraph

A compelling tale of deceit, dialogue and the author's own despair . . . This is a story with frenzy at its heart

James Naughtie, Daily Telegraph

John le Carré's bullet train of a new thriller is part vintage John le Carré and part Alfred Hitchcock . . . The author's most thrilling thriller in years

The New York Times

If you want to know about the state of Britain today, forget the Booker shortlist. Just read John le Carré's latest thriller

Evening Standard

Few recent plays have had dialogue as good, and few recent literary novels can boast a set of characters so vividly imagined. Our Kind of Traitor is a teasing, beguiling, masterly performance

Sunday Times

A compelling tale of deceit, dialogue and the author's own despair John le Carré's greatest gift may be his ear, which allows him to pick up a tremor of fear in the softest voice or a false note in any exchange of words and play with them to his heart's content. He can therefore create, in dialogue, a trembling soundscape that has a pitch-perfect quality

Sunday Telegraph

Chilling and astute . . . In Our Kind of Traitor, there is not a hair out of place . . . le Carré has done it again for our nasty new age

The Times
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