or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
More Buying Choices
267 used & new from £0.01
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
The Mission Song
 
See larger image 
Share your own customer images
Publisher: learn how customers can search inside this book.

The Mission Song (Paperback)

by John le Carré (Author)
3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
Price: £5.56 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £2.43 (30%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In stock.
Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk. Gift-wrap available.

Want guaranteed delivery by Tuesday, November 24? Choose Express delivery at checkout. See Details
24 new from £2.00 242 used from £0.01 1 collectible from £0.01
Other Editions: RRP: Our Price: Other Offers:
Hardcover (First Edition First Printing) 34 used & new from £0.19
Paperback £6.99 £6.99 30 used & new from £0.01
Mass Market Paperback (Reprint) 27 used & new from £0.01
Library Binding (Reprint) 2 used & new from £11.51
Hardcover (Large Print) 12 used & new from £1.43
Show more editions and formats

Special Offers and Product Promotions

Frequently Bought Together

The Mission Song + A Most Wanted Man + The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Price For All Three: £13.50

Show availability and delivery details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Absolute Friends

Absolute Friends

by John le Carré
3.9 out of 5 stars (23)  £5.96
Single and Single

Single and Single

by John le Carré
3.6 out of 5 stars (13)  £4.98
A Most Wanted Man

A Most Wanted Man

by John le Carré
3.6 out of 5 stars (59)  £3.99
Our Game

Our Game

by John le Carré
3.8 out of 5 stars (9)  £5.99
The Night Manager

The Night Manager

by John le Carré
4.5 out of 5 stars (8)  £6.73
› Explore similar items

Product details

  • Paperback: 400 pages
  • Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks (9 Aug 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0340921994
  • ISBN-13: 978-0340921999
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.4 x 3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 91,691 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #41 in  Books > Crime, Thrillers & Mystery > Authors, A-Z > L > Le Carre, John > Complete List

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Product Description

Sunday Times

'Mesmerising.'


Review

'I imagine this is the first time that le Carré has been mentioned in the same breath as Updike and Roth. They, after all, are Literary Novelists with a capital L and N, whereas Le Carré is . . . well, what is he? Actually he is sui generis. Or, rather, he is his own genre. Quite an achievement that.'

(Sunday Telegraph 20060917)

'THE MISSION SONG is meticulously researched, and the tricks and tactics of being a top interpreter are convincingly rendered. You're left with the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps politicians, journalists, civil servants and the businessmen really are the lying, amoral bastards portrayed here. Perhaps it isn't only in le Carré's world, but in the real world too, that we're unwise to believe what we are told.'

(Independent on Sunday )

'Fast-paced and entertaining'

(Times Literary Supplement )

'Exquisitely crafted'

(Daily Mail )

'Le Carre's eye is undimmed, his passion for his craft as strong as it ever was. He delivers a tale that few could equal and none will surpass.'

(Observer )

'le Carre shows no sign of slowing up or losing touch.'

(Spectator )

'This thriller exhibits his familiar strengths: superbly realised characters; a succession of knockout scenes nobody else could produce; and a distinctive ability to fuse social comedy and moral anger . . . Mesmerising.'

(Sunday Times )

'Bold, vigorous and extremely funny.'

(Evening Standard )

'I think it's very good'

(John Sutherland, 'Front Row', BBC Radio 4 )

'A formidably sophisticated work of fiction, full of energy, rage and great humour. All the qualities for which le Carre's fiction has been admired - his descriptive powers, his electrifying dialogue, his cynicism in the presence of corporate greed and government power - are visible in THE MISSION SONG. That this great English novelist continues to produce work of this calibre with such frequency is simply astonishing.'

(Charles Cumming, Mail on Sunday )
See all Product Description

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(2)
(2)
(2)
(1)

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

The Mission Song
56% buy the item featured on this page:
The Mission Song 3.4 out of 5 stars (24)
£5.56
A Most Wanted Man
28% buy
A Most Wanted Man 3.6 out of 5 stars (59)
£3.99
Absolute Friends
6% buy
Absolute Friends 3.9 out of 5 stars (23)
£5.96
The Girl Who Played with Fire
5% buy
The Girl Who Played with Fire 4.4 out of 5 stars (170)
£3.95
Explore similar items
 

Customer Reviews

24 Reviews
5 star:
 (3)
4 star:
 (8)
3 star:
 (10)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.4 out of 5 stars (24 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A great addition to Le Carré's post-Cold War output, 27 Feb 2008
By Wynne Kelly "Kellydoll" (Coventry, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)      
Bruno Salvador, with an Irish Missionary father and Congolese mother, works as a freelance interpreter. As well as English, French and Swahili he also speaks a range of less common African languages.

As a loyal British citizen he is proud to be called on by unnamed government departments to assist in sensitive negotiations. But when he is asked to leave at short notice to attend a conference of unnamed people for unknown purposes on an anonymous northern island things go awry for him. As an interpreter he is expected to hold everything in strict confidence but as the conference progresses he sees and hears things that can only be detrimental to peace and progress.

It is very well done how Le Carré portrays Salvo as initially very enthusiastic and naïvely supportive of what is being planned and how he gradually has his innocence ripped away from him.

The Mission Song is well plotted (complex but believable) and whips along at a great pace. An exciting read but without any crazy chases or gun fights. Another great addition to Le Carré's post-Cold War output.

Can businessmen, Civil Servants and politicians be so corrupt and self-serving? Yes, probably.

Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars On top form, 27 Dec 2007
By Pilgrim (Scotland) - See all my reviews
I cannot understand why other readers of this book have been disappointed. Perhaps they expected a trademark tale of intrigue instead of an accurate description of the tawdry intrigues in which the Uk government regularly indulges in order to protect its interests in Africa (for which, read big business). Instead, Mr le Carre has given us a dark farce, seen through the eyes of the delightfully drawn central character. Whilst the surface story is fairly straightforward, once you begin to think of the underlying assumptions that are being exposed, you see that the fierce anger at the way the West has treated Africa still burns.

As for being 'literary'. Well, Mr le Carre has always been that. He has chronicled the dark heart of our civilization and all the forms of betrayal on which it based ever since he started writing. It is high time his work was recognized for this - if ever there was a contender for the Nobel prize, it is John le Carre.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Not for me, 18 Aug 2007
By Suzie (Scotland, UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   
I bought this because I so enjoyed reading `The Constant Gardener'. The theme of 'The Mission Song' - Western exploitation of an African country - is admirable and the writing as clear and fluent as any other Le Carre, but I found the story tedious in its detail. In particluar the word-for-word description of a meeting on some unnamed island struck me as too long and laboured. Eventually the story did get going again but I have to say it took some perseverance to reach that point and even then I found the ensuing chapters disappointingly predictable.

Although well-written and clever, this did not seem to me to be up to Le Carre's previous work. Unless you're into detailed political negotiation I really wouldn't bother.
Comment Comment (1) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars Original and worthy, though could be more readable
For those who are familiar with Le Carre's books, this novel is in a similar vein to the excellent 'Constant Gardener'. Read more
Published 7 months ago by BookWorm

4.0 out of 5 stars Idealism and naiveté betrayed
"I'm just not sure who the heathens are." - Bruno Salvador experiencing disillusionment

First published in 2006, THE MISSION SONG has a racially mixed protagonist -... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Joseph Haschka

3.0 out of 5 stars Good Thriller
A book about a "whistle-blower" who happens to be an interpreter. I liked the insight given into the world of an interpreter - different from a mere translator - and was... Read more
Published 12 months ago by Andy

4.0 out of 5 stars Will Salvo save the day?
This isn't the type of book I'd usually read - usually I prefer to stick to more light-hearted stuff, or at least, books that don't contain too much politics. Read more
Published 21 months ago by L. Felthouse

4.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully constructed, unfortunately credible
In The Mission Song John le Carré re-visits the world of espionage that we associate with his writing. He is a master of the clandestine, the deniable, the re-definable. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Philip Spires

3.0 out of 5 stars Not the best
This maybe is a familiar tale, but Le Carre ensures the reader is left in no doubt that the UK government, big business are at the heart of the coup and the American's are lurking... Read more
Published 23 months ago by H. Ludford

1.0 out of 5 stars Deeply disappointing
I am a huge fan of Le Carré and rate The Perfect Spy as one of my favourite all time novels. As someone else put it, I would usually classify his work as literature. Read more
Published on 20 Nov 2007 by Nick A

3.0 out of 5 stars More of the same
John Le Carre is one of the the most accomplished writers around. I classify his writing as 'literature' - the detail, the dialogue, the characterisation, the prose style - all... Read more
Published on 12 Nov 2007 by Keith Mitchell

4.0 out of 5 stars Not up to par, but still one of the best novelists out there
I would agree with other reviewers on this site that The Mission Song is not one of Le Carre's best. Read more
Published on 8 Nov 2007 by Ingaborga

3.0 out of 5 stars African Connection
There is no doubt that Le Carre is a main player in contemporary fiction and his work is always well crafted, however I have to say I was slightly disappointed with the Mission... Read more
Published on 1 Nov 2007 by Duncan Stewart

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
   
Related forums

Listmania!

Create a Listmania! list

Look for similar items by category

Look for similar items by subject











i.e., each product must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...

Feedback

Ad

Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.