Get into John LeCarre with Jeanne Brown!
KCC Composition and Reading Instructor, Jeanne Brown notes:
I recently finished a John LeCarre novel, The Constant Gardener, not a
spy novel this time, but it reads like one. The story begins in
Nairobi Kenya, when a young British diplomat’s wife is murdered and
her husband, Justin, tries to piece together what really happened to
his wife, Tess, a human rights activist. She had been working with an
African doctor trying to uncover the corrupt and deadly practices of a
large pharmaceutical company running a trial of a new drug, Dypraxa,
on poor, unsuspecting people, largely from the refugee camps in Kenya.
As he grieves, he works his way through Tess’s investigation notes
and other materials, comments from his friends and colleagues and
others who knew and loved her. He begins to suspect the truth behind what
happened to Tess and Arnold Blum and begins his own investigation.
At every turn he seems thwarted by British Intelligence and “the Home
Office,” and the large multinational corporation, KVH, with something
to hide. Even disguising his identity and traveling the continent
can’t protect him, but ultimately the details are revealed in a
surprising conclusion. The story brings home the frightening power of
huge, greedy corporations over average humans.
image copied from openlibrary.org
Taken from a blog posting:
Perhaps the scariest part of the book is the Author’s Note, at the end
– the part that explains that “in these dog days when lawyers rule
the universe,” he has to include disclaimers, stating that (almost)
none of the characters (and their actions) is based on real life. But
then he also adds that during his research for this book, he “came to
realize that, by comparison with the reality, my story was as tame as
a holiday postcard”.
(http://tal.forum2.org/gardener)
In Jeanne’s opinion…
It is a recommend!
