This book took me back to when my children were little. I used to love reading these books when my children would check them out from the library and this one, was no exception. I choose my first path through the book, based on what I’d want to do and then, I went back and reread the book a few times, choosing paths that were totally different. I was Harry Houdini, a magician with big dreams!

All paths in the book begin in America, in the year 1899. Working as a traveling sideshow, you like to call yourself the “The King of the Cuffs,” as you’re able to outwit any handcuff that anyone tries to attach to you. This of course, angers the police but you’re starting to make a name for yourself, as people are beginning to notice you. Now in Chicago, as a crowd gathers around, you’re getting the attention that you don’t want. The police have arrested you, placed you in chains, and put you in a cell. Can their charges be legitimate? You’ve never attempted a cell break before, yet it could be possible. You receive a sign just before the lieutenant rushes into your cell to offer you a deal.

It’s time now for the first decision in this book: does Harry take the deal that was offered to him or does Harry decide to use the omen that he received and not take the lieutenant’s deal? What the reader chooses will direct their path to the next section to read and set their course for this book.

This book is based on a true story and there’s an article about Harry at the back of the book. I enjoyed my adventures as I traveled through the book; some were short-lived and I did have one very long journey. I did learn a few things about this man as I read and having the opportunity to choose the storyline is a very fun way to read a story. 4.5 stars

"The Little Drummer Girl" is the third book that I've abandoned in my "20 for 20 Reading Challenge" to read twenty books that are more than twenty hours long.

I've really enjoyed the Le Carré books that I've read so far, all of which post-date "The Little Drummer Girl". This book didn't work for me. I listened to the first six and a half hours of the book and found myself increasingly reluctant to return to it, so I've pressed the life's-too-short button and abandoned it,

The book is well written and well-narrated. It has some very powerful scenes in it. The characters are well-drawn and the places are well-described. My problem started with the pace, which is slow and evolved into the characters, none of whom I care about.

After six and a half hours we've finally reached the point where our young British actress has been successfully recruited to work with the Israelis to help them (somehow) take down a Palestinian terrorist cell. I know every detail of the process used to recruit her and it seems to me to be as credible as it is frightening. Reading it was like watching a craftsman build a brick wall with a complex pattern embedded in it or watching a wrangler tame a wild horse. It's fascinating in its own way but you have to care about the craftsman or the horse. I found I didn't care for either.

So I'll never know what Charlie's mission was or whether she succeeded in it or how many people died along the way. I'm OK with that.

I'll be back for other Le Carré books but I'm saying good-bye to this one.

OMG ! What and intense and riveting read this was! " I was on the seat of my pants the entire time until the end." Omg ! I am still reeling for this book even after reading it.

Talk about complicated characters "well", this one was loaded with them as they were all mysterious and dangerous and all held mind blowing secrets.

I cannot explain how much I loved this story as it was complicated and intriguing and mysterious and one that you knew eventually would turn into one heck of a complex love triangle. There were parts unraveling throughout the story I did not see coming.All the characters simply amazing,The plot itself was a little unnerving but, drew you in from the very first pages so much so you could not put it down."The ending omg ! what a shocker and had there been another book I would have picked it up a dove right back in again and would have huddle under the covers in bed and not come out until that book was finished too."I can't wait to see what happens next.The story mind boggling at times it was a bit confusing but, when turned the pages and the story start unfolding the players all started making sense.

Final thoughts

"This is the best romantic suspense read for us so far for 2020! " "We didn't want the story to end!"

 

A gentle, convincing, compelling story of modern spying, filled with real people, surprising twists and scathing assessments of our Brexit Blunder and Trump as Putin's poodle.

I recommend listening to John Le Carré narrating "Agent Running In The Field".His measured delivery which captures every nuance, his perfectly rendered accents for characters domestic and foreign and his patient, bear-with-me-I-promise-it-will-be-worth-it tone add authenticity to the read. The book is written as a first-person account of events addressed directly to the reader. Le Carré's narration makes it easy to maintain the illusion that you and he are settled in comfortable armchairs, sharing a glass of something in a private room in his club.

"Agent Running In The Field" is the story of a spy in his mid-forties, returned to England towards the end of his operational career after years spent in various parts of Europe, recruiting agents, mostly to combat Russia's hybrid war on Western Europe who is now trying to decide what to do next. He ends us with a domestic posting to an obscure branch of the service where circumstances and his own inability to leave his operational instincts behind, result in him being in the centre of a major counter-espionage operation against the Russians in London.

This plot provides the framework for exploring the impact on long-serving offficers of being led by a government committed to delivering Putin's Brexit and a Foreign Secretary (now Prime Minister) that the security services themselves have identified as a security risk because of his close ties to Russia, at a time when Trump is declaring Europe to be his enemy, undermining NATO and apparently doing whatever Putin asks him to do.

There is an example, early in the book, where the spy tries to explain for the first time to his now-university-age daughter that he is not a low-flying diplomat but a spy tasked with persuading foreign nationals to betray their country. When he explains that some people do this because of their ideals, his daughter, rather sceptically, asks him to specify. What follows gives a great insight into how those who serve our present government may feel about them. The spy says:

"Let's say, just for instance, somebody has an idealistic vision of England as the Mother of all democracies or they love our dear Queen with an unexplained fervour. It may not be an England that exists for us any more, if it ever did, but they think it does, so go with it."

"Do you think it does?"

"With reservations."

"Serious reservations?"

"Well, who wouldn't have for Christ's sake?", I reply, stung by the suggestion that I've somehow failed to notice that the country's in free-fall. A minority Cabinet of tenth raters. A pig-ignorant Foreign Secretary who I'm supposed to be serving. Labour no better. The sheer bloody lunacy of Brexit. I break off. I have feelings too. Let my indignant silence say the rest.

"Then you do have serious reservations," she says in her purest tone, "even very serious. Yes?"

Too late I realise that I've left myself wide open. But perhaps that was what I wanted to achieve all along, to give her the victory, acknowledge that I'm not up to the standard of her brilliant professors and then we can go back to being who we were.

"So, if I've got this right," she resumes as we embark on our next ascent, "for the sake of a country that you have serious reservations about, even very serious, you persuade other nationals to betray their own countries." And as an after thought: "The reason being that they don't share the same reservations that you have about your country, wereas they do have reservations about their own country. Yes?"

Yet this book is more than a polemic against the success of Putin's campaign to destroy the West. It gives a convincing portrait of a man re-assessing his life: his marriage, his relationship with his daughter, the impact of his operational life on his own character and his responsibility to act when he can.

As this is Le Carré, it also provides a very convincing view of modern spycraft which is all the more powerful for its matter-of-factness. Even when the spy places himself in harm's way, Le Carré manages to convey the reality of the threat without resorting to melodrama.

The plot is entertaining. You know that the various strands must be connected but how and when they connected continued to surprise and please me, right up to the surprisingly action-packed ending.