A Delicate Truth

A Delicate Truth

Paperback cover
Author	John le Carré
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English
Publisher	Penguin Books
Publication date	25 April 2013
Media type	Print (hardcover)
Pages	320
ISBN	9780670922796
Preceded by	Our Kind of Traitor

A Delicate Truth is a 2013 spy novel by John le Carré. Set in 2011, the book flashes back to a 2008 joint American-British covert mission on the Rock of Gibraltar and the consequences for two British civil servants.^[1]

Le Carré describes this as not only his most British novel but also his most autobiographical work in years.^[2] The author told The Daily Telegraph that he has based two of the book's characters on himself. Le Carré sees Toby Bell as the "thirty-something rising star of Her Majesty's Foreign Service, [...] the striving ambitious fellow I fancy myself to have been at much the same age." Whereas Sir Christopher ("Kit") Probyn, "is a retired Foreign Office civil servant, who lives in rural Cornwall," – the author "has lived in a clifftop house outside St Buryan, near Land's End, for more than 40 years."^[2]

Plot summary

In 2008, Christopher "Kit" Probyn, a civil servant in British Intelligence, known by his alias "Paul Anderson", is recruited by Foreign Office minister Fergus Quinn to take part in Operation Wildlife, a joint operation with a U.S. military contractor called Ethical Outcomes. Paul is sent to Gibraltar and joins a team composed of British operatives and Ethical employees, directed by Quinn and an Ethical executive named Elliot, and a British Special Forces commander named Jeb. The operation is compromised when Quinn and Elliot insist that the operatives raid an abandoned house where, despite the absence of proof, they assume a high-ranking jihadist is hiding. When the commandos disappear, Paul is abruptly sent back to Britain by an Ethical liaison, who insists that the operation was a success.

In a flashback, Quinn's newly appointed Private Secretary, Toby Bell, becomes suspicious of his secretive nature and his close ties with Jay Crispin, the founder of Ethical. Bell sees Quinn with Crispin during diplomatic trips to Brussels, Prague, and Berlin, and learns that the two met during Quinn's time at Harvard. Bell learns that Quinn was saved from scandal after it was discovered that Crispin was found running a privatised spy shop within the Ministry of Defence; Crispin is said to have been cast away by the British government, but Bell learns that he meets with Quinn at parliamentary functions. Recruited by high-ranking British intelligence official Giles Oakley to keep an eye on Quinn, Bell secretly records the preliminary meeting on Wildlife.

Three years after Wildlife, Probyn is contacted by a disgruntled Jeb, who informs him the operation had not only failed to yield the capture of the jihadist leader, but had furthermore led to the death of an innocent woman and her child. Probyn contacts Jay Crispin, who assured him that nobody was killed during the operation. Jeb then provides Probyn a detailed account of the botched operation, and the two decide to meet and write a complete report on Wildlife. When Jeb fails to show up at the meeting, Probyn contacts Toby Bell to test where his loyalty lies.

Probyn is surprised to discover that Bell was kept entirely in the dark about Wildlife and that his entire knowledge of the case stems from the taped meeting record. Toby acquires a lead on Jeb from medical doctor Emily Probyn, Kit's daughter. Inquiring on the whereabouts of Jeb, they discover him assassinated, with the murder poorly disguised as suicide and signs of police cover-up. Kit Probyn attempts to trigger an official investigation by communicating his half of the Wildlife dossier to the Foreign Office, but is rebuffed and threatened with a secret trial. Toby contacts "Shorty", Jeb's former teammate and now a henchman of Crispin's, in the hope of extracting information and possibly recruit him for his investigation. Beforehand, Toby contacts Oakley, now a private banker, in the hope of acquiring his support, but is rebuffed.

At the meeting with "Shorty", Toby is abducted by Crispin's henchmen and led to his lair. Crispin attempts to recruit Toby, but the latter refuses, reasoning that the offer is a sign that Crispin is actually afraid of him, having overreached so much with Jeb's murder that his high-ranking connections will not protect him anymore. Toby returns home, where he his beaten to an inch of this life by Crispin's henchmen, as a warning not to pursue further. He is rescued by Dr. Emily Probyn; soon after, Oakley, having had a change of heart, transmits the "Aftermath and Recommendations" dossier on Wildlife to Toby. Toby and Emily run to a nearby cybercafé and send copies of the completed dossier to major media outlets. They are immediately arrested.

Adaptations

A Delicate Truth was broadcast in a ten part series on BBC Radio 4 from Monday, 13 May to Friday, 24 May 2013. The book was abridged by Sally Marmion and was read by Damian Lewis.^[3] Writing on webzine Collider.com in April 2013, Adam Chitwood noted that screenwriter William Monahan is "in advanced talks to adapt [...] A Delicate Truth". He added that "BBC Films is developing the adaptation, but there's no timetable for when the pic might get in front of cameras."^[4]

Reception

Publishers Weekly describes the novel as "entertainingly labyrinthine if overly polemical." The anonymous reviewer believes that le Carré "tells a great story in sterling prose, but he veers dangerously close to farce and caricature, particularly with the comically amoral Americans. His best work has been about the moral ambiguity of spying, while this novel feels as if the issue of who's bad and who's good is too neatly sewn up."^[5]

Kirkus Reviews notes that le Carré "resolutely keeping potential action sequences just offstage," and "focuses instead on the moral rot and creeping terror barely concealed by the affable old-boy blather that marks the pillars of the intelligence community."

Bill Ott, writing for Booklist, believes "Le Carré further establishes himself as a master of a new, shockingly realistic kind of noir in which right-thinking individuals who challenge the institutional order of things always lose."^[6]

References