| Single and Single | |
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1st edition |
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| Author(s) | John le Carré |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Crime, Fiction, Mystery novel |
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton |
| Publication date | 1999 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) also Audiobook |
| Pages | 352 |
| ISBN | 0-340-73897-9 |
| OCLC Number | 44694435 |
Single and Single is a novel by John le Carré. It is the story of a British Customs and Excise officer on the trail of elusive fraudster Tiger Single. Helped by Tiger's son Oliver, Brock of Customs and Excise unravels the mystery of an international money-laundering operation.
Contents |
Like many of Le Carre's novels, the narrative begins in the in media res style, midway through the events which have precipitated the opening scene.
In Istanbul, Alfred Winser, a corporate lawyer with the London finance house Single & Single, is executed in cold blood by Alix Hoban, his firm's leading client, for reasons he cannot comprehend.
In Devon, England, Oliver Hawthorne is a down-at-heel children's magician lodging in a small hotel owned by a woman named Elsie and her son Sammy. After finishing his latest performance, he receives an urgent call from his banker, who informs him that an anonymous benefactor has deposited the staggering sum of £5,000,030 pounds into the trust Oliver created for his infant daughter, Carmen. Oliver claims ignorance, but tells Elsie he has to go to London for a few days.
The narrative shifts to the early 1990s, when Oliver - in reality Oliver Single - joins his father "Tiger" Single's firm just after graduating from law school. After the warming of relations with the Soviet Union, several Western businesses are eager to explore business opportunities in the "new" Russia, and Tiger has secured a meeting with two Russian brothers, the Orlovs, renowned as Moscow's "premier power brokers." Yevgeny Orlov and his right-hand man, Alix Hoban, discuss ventures with Tiger to restructure and exploit Soviet resources in scrap iron, oil, and - most lucrative of all - surplus disaster relief blood.
Though he has some misgivings, Oliver is enough in awe of his father to throw himself into facilitating the various deals, including traveling to Moscow, where he meets Yevgeny's daughter Zoya, whom Hoban is married to. Hoban has no regard for his wife, and she and Oliver soon become lovers.
All of Single & Single's plans collapse with the Soviet coup attempt of 1991: overnight, the Soviet Union collapses and the Orlovs' power and vaunted connections are reduced to nothing. Tiger is undeterred, and sends Oliver out on various business errands that increase his misgivings. Before long, Single & Single and the Orlovs appear to be prosperous again.
After receiving cryptic hints from Zoya, Oliver raids his father's safe during the office Christmas party, and a look through his records is enough to confirm Oliver's worst fears: the Orlovs have rebuilt their power structure as an organized crime syndicate, and his father's finance house is a money laundering service.
In turmoil, Oliver informs on his father to Nathaniel Brock, a senior officer of British Customs and Excise, and then disappears. Now, years later, the deposit into his daughter's trust makes Oliver realize that his father is on to him. Tiger once made a promise to deposit £5,000,000 pounds into a trust as soon as Oliver gave him a grandchild; the extra £30 signifies the Thirty pieces of silver given to Judas Iscariot.
Oliver meets with Brock, who informs him that the Orlovs had Winser killed after a series of "business" setbacks, the last occurring a few weeks ago when the Russian Coast Guard interdicted and boarded the freighter Free Talinn in the Baltic Sea. Tiger has disappeared, and Brock needs Oliver's help to track him down.
As a Customs official, Brock's obsession is corrupt British officials who aid international crime, and his "personal anti-Christ" is Superintendent Bernard Porlock, a "brazenly corrupt" Scotland Yard official who controls a vast network of such corrupt officials all over the United Kingdom, and a long-time cohort of Tiger's.
Brock tells Oliver that he is prepared to offer Tiger full immunity, in exchange for enough information to bring down Porlock and his network. Oliver, who still suffers feelings of guilt for betraying his father, agrees to help save him.
Oliver Single is a complex character, disaffected and clumsy, a giant of a man, who has tried for years to lose his identity. He gave up a glittering lifestyle and career for his principles. However, he cannot abandon his father and risks everything to save him, even though, in a moment of pure clarity, he sees his father for the empty and amoral scoundrel he really is.
The story reads like many of le Carré's earlier spy novels, and much spycraft is applied in the hunt for Tiger Single. Now that the wall is down, the enemy is not so clearly defined. In his search for his father, he realises that his betrayal was not the only one.
The book takes the reader to Georgia, Istanbul and a greedy, sparkling West End of London.
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