'The Constant Gardener' by John Le Carre

The Constant Gardener, John Le Carre (4.0)

I enjoy the detail in Le Carre’s writing. While it requires closer reading, the stories feel real and complex, like life. In this story, he moves away from his usual spy fare, though the British government bureaucracy that frustrates his MI6 characters looms large here. It centers on a British foreign serviceman stationed in Kenya. At the beginning his wife has been murdered while working with an NGO doctor to uncover a potential pharma scandal. He tries to sift through the gossip by the media and obfuscation by his office as he learns how deeply his wife was engaged in discovering the truth. Like his other books, here the main character’s feelings are deep while he shows little in typical English fashion. I also watched the movie and found it to lack the emotion of the book, though had moving scenes of Africa.