Year ago, my parents loaned me a copy of "Smiley's People", and I was immediately hooked by the elegance of the authors phrasing, the sizzling irony, and the multi-timbral intent that I later came to associate with all his work. In Le Carre's world, no motivation is too base, no good deed ever unpunishable.

Absolute friends opens a window on the struggle de jour -- rampant islamic fundamentalism, against the hegemonistic empire of the secular western infidel, as suffered by an altruistic dreamer and his ideologue friend who are caught directly in the middle. This cautionary tale spans three decades of intrigue, and draws to an exorable climax in which the altruist and apostate become indestinguishable, and no safe ground exists upon which to separate them.