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The Mission Song (Penguin Modern Classics) Kindle Edition
'Mesmerising' Sunday Times
As an interpreter of African languages, Bruno Salvador is much in demand. He makes it a principle to remain neutral - no matter what he hears. But when he is summoned on a secret job for British Intelligence, he is told he will have to get his hands dirty. His mission is to help bring democracy to the Congo - democracy that will be delivered at the end of a gun barrel.
The Mission Song is an excoriating depiction of a corrupt world where loyalty can be bought and war is simply an opportunity to settle old scores.
'Simply astonishing ... a formidably sophisticated work of fiction' Charles Cumming
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin
- Publication date27 Sept. 2018
- File size1.6 MB
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Product description
Review
"A full-fledged page turner....The Mission Song ultimately confirms for me that there is no better storyteller working today than le Carré."--Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram
From the Publisher
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : B07CV5RB6P
- Publisher : Penguin
- Accessibility : Learn more
- Publication date : 27 Sept. 2018
- Edition : 1st
- Language : English
- File size : 1.6 MB
- Screen Reader : Supported
- Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
- X-Ray : Not Enabled
- Word Wise : Enabled
- Print length : 360 pages
- ISBN-13 : 978-0241322406
- Page Flip : Enabled
- Best Sellers Rank: 81,312 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- 1,228 in Espionage Thrillers (Kindle Store)
- 1,520 in Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue
- 12,846 in Mysteries (Kindle Store)
- Customer reviews:
About the author

John le Carré is the nom de plume of David John Moore Cornwell, who was born on 19th October 1931 in Poole, Dorset. He was educated at Sherborne School, the University of Bern and Lincoln College, Oxford, where he graduated with a first-class honours degree in Modern Languages. He taught at Eton from 1956 to 1958 and was a member of the British Foreign Service from 1959 to 1964, serving first as Second Secretary in the British Embassy in Bonn, and subsequently as Political Consul in Hamburg.
He began writing in 1961 and published twenty-six novels and one memoir:
Call for the Dead (1961)
A Murder of Quality (1962)
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (1963)
The Looking Glass War (1965)
A Small Town in Germany (1968)
The Naive and Sentimental Lover (1971)
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974)
The Honourable Schoolboy (1977)
Smiley's People (1979)
The Little Drummer Girl (1983)
A Perfect Spy (1986)
The Russia House (1989)
The Secret Pilgrim (1991)
The Night Manager (1993)
Our Game (1995)
The Tailor of Panama (1996)
Single & Single (1999)
The Constant Gardener (2001)
Absolute Friends (2003)
The Mission Song (2006)
A Most Wanted Man (2008)
Our Kind of Traitor (2010)
A Delicate Truth (2013)
The Pigeon Tunnel (memoir) (2016)
A Legacy of Spies (2017)
Agent Running in the Field (2019)
Silverview (published posthumously in 2021)
His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, became an international bestseller, spending 32 weeks at number 1 on the New York Times bestseller list; it was selected as one of the All-Time 100 Novels by Time magazine.
Many of his novels have been made into film, including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (starring Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy), The Constant Gardener (Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz), The Russia House (Sean Connery and Michelle Pfeiffer) and The Tailor of Panama (Pierce Brosnan).
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Smiley’s People (starring Alec Guinness), A Perfect Spy (Peter Egan), The Night Manager (Hugh Laurie, Tom Hiddleston, Tom Hollander, Elizabeth Debicki) and The Little Drummer Girl (Florence Pugh and Alexander Skarsgård) have all been adapted for television.
John le Carré declined all British-based honours, but accepted the title of Commandeur de L’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (France) in 2005, and the Goethe Medal (Germany) in 2011. He was also the recipient of the Olof Palme Prize in Stockholm in January 2020. In 2010, he was awarded the Sunday Times Award for Literary Excellence, which he received at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford.
He was an Honorary Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford and held Honorary Doctorates at Exeter University, the Universities of St. Andrews, Bath, Southampton, Plymouth, Bern, Oxford and Falmouth College of Arts.
He died of pneumonia in Cornwall on 12th December 2020.
A Private Spy, a collection of John le Carré's letters edited by his son, Tim Cornwell, was published by Penguin Random House in 2022.
Customer reviews
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- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 August 2018For this novel Le Carre has chosen different characters in a different setting. The storyline has good pace and lots of interesting snippets along the way. He clearly does a lot of research for his books and this one is no different. I had wanted to hold this novel back for my holiday but I made the mistake of reading a few pages and that was it. I would rank it as one of his finest novels and I would recommend it to anyone.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 January 2014As I love the spy genre, I've always been a fan of John le Carre's books but for some reason had missed this one when it first came out. However, having read it now on my Kindle, I can report that it is an excellent read. The author captures the 'voice' of Salvo, the main character, originally from the Congo, beautifully. The reader is engaged very quickly and the narrative moves at a steady pace when Salvo, a talented multi-linguist, occasionally employed by British Intelligence in a low-key role, finds himself approached by a shadowy organisation to do some serious translating at a secret location and becomes involved in the murky world of international espionage. And while it is by no means le Carre's greatest work it is nevertheless an absorbing and thought-provoking read, made all the more so by the author's wonderful use of language and his inside knowledge of the workings of the intelligence services. There is a strong moral dimension to the story, highly relevant to our contemporary lives and, despite the inevitable conclusion and Salvo's fate, allows for some optimism, though the author's anger at the duplicitous nature of how governments work is very clear. It made a really good holiday read. Highly recommended. Gordon Minto
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 September 2017I am a great fan if john le carre's and initially I was disappointed. The book started well and I enjoyed the quirkiness of the main character. However, the main bulk if the first half is set in one place with the same characters and takes a long time to set the book up for its finale. Thus section of the book is fine but didn't engage me enough. However, the final third, really picks up the pace and things slot nicely in to place. Overall, this is worth a read but is by no means amongst le carre's finest works.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 September 2013John le Carrè continues to delight and astound us as he finds yet another voice with which to bewitchingly conjure up for us a tale of competing factions, most of whom are up to no good at all, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly also known as Zaire, and, further back, The Belgian Congo.
Rich in many exotic minerals but riven by civil wars, tribal tensions, internal corruption and above all, by external exploitation, the Congo is the victim of yet another attempt to enrich further the already exceedingly rich. And this book tells that story. The narrator is one Bruno Salvador, Salvo to his friends, who introduces himself to us on page one, where we immediately hear his beatiful voice :
"I am ... by profession.....a top interpreter of Swahili and the lesser-known but widely spoken languages of the Eastern Congo, formerly under Belgian rule, hence my mastery of French, a further arrow in my professional quiver".
And his expertise is in high demand to facilitate the conferring of the main participants to events planned on the ground. How all this develops the author tells us through Salvo's beautifully captured voice, a style of speaking which is the essence of style itself, and of wit and of charm, and which always resounds with a gentle archness of tone and form that continue to delight the reader.
Well done again John le Crarè. Is there no end at all to this man's talent?
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 January 2022Format: Audio CDVerified PurchaseI’ve read all of Le Carre’s books and the Mission Song is one of my least favourites for some reason. However, the reader’s performance is excellent. The only clanger was his Welsh accent for Spider but that’s being picky. Highly recommended.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 April 2024Format: Kindle EditionVerified PurchaseA devastating exploration of the corruption and exploitation by internal and external powers that has heaped misery on the "Congo" for decades.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 27 April 2016A very enjoyable read. Carre's depth of knowledge of how the establishment and the security services work in deniable tandem shine through with his usual well placed cynicism. Well researched, authentic setting in one of Africa's most troubled regions makes the whole story ring true. Not his best book perhaps but better than most writers best books.
- Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 August 2017I found this Le Carre book heavy going and almost gave up on it. I persevered and was glad I did, although I don't regard this as anywhere near his best work. He spends far too much time setting the scene, so to speak, sometimes in laborious detail and I found myself just wishing he would get on with it. In fact I wanted to skip over or speed-read certain passages but didn't for fear of missing some salient point.
The first six or so chapters describe how one Bruno Salvador, a multi-lingual African-born interpreter specialising in East African languages, who does occasional translation work for British Inteligence, is selected by said agency to go undercover. Given a cover and flown out to an unidentified island he is supposed to act as innocent interpreter at a high level meeting of Congolese tribal leaders, but who is also told he is to eavesdrop on their private conversations via bugged rooms etc. So far so Le Carre, but the narrative gets bogged down in the middle and it is not until chapter thirteen that the plot becomes interesting again and appears to be getting somewhere.
The ending is unexpected and quite clever, but appeared rushed, almost as though the author himself had got bored and decided he'd better finish.
In style this book was similar to Our Kind Of Traitor, which also took an inordinate length of time to set the scene before anything approaching action takes place.
Top reviews from other countries
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Felipe QuentalReviewed in Brazil on 14 December 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Ótimo Le Carré.
A história do tradutor simultâneo é bem contada, como sempre em Le Carré, com humor e amargura, e bom estilo.
- Roger A. KnopfReviewed in the United States on 27 January 2025
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderfully complex story with a surprising end
As with all Le Carre books, there are characters you become quite invested in, back stories which at least for me are educational, and an intersection with the secret world that, well, sometimes I am not sure I want to know about.
The nice thing is that, unlike some of his more recent books (and I don't want to give away any spoilers), the ending isn't so depressingly dystopian.
Long and short of it, I couldn't put it down and I found the characters very involving. Recommended.
- CindyReviewed in Italy on 15 October 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating!
Format: Kindle EditionVerified PurchaseThis was actually the second time I’d read “The Mission Song”. I’ve read almost all of Le Carré sy books twice. So glad to hear that he is still at it!
- SpacemanReviewed in India on 6 November 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book.
Personal enjoyment.
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Client AmazonReviewed in France on 26 September 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Partagé entre le plaisir et l'angoisse
Comme c'est John le CARRE, on savoure chaque phrase et le style inimitable,
mais comme on est dans son univers, on tremble pour le narrateur devant la description d'un monde glauque,
sans issue.