Author:John le Carré,James Fox,Harriet Walter,Julian Rhind-Tutt,Full Cast
Magnus Pym, Counsellor at the British Embassy, is hosting a dinner party at his home in Vienna when he receives an unexpected telephone call that will profoundly affect his life. Once the guests have gone, Pym breaks the news to his wife, Mary: his father, Rick, is dead. In a state of shock, he says something Mary cannot understand - 'After all these years, I'm free.' Magnus flies back to England to attend the funeral - and doesn't return. As Mary and MI6 spymaster Jack Brotherhood desperately try to find out his whereabouts, it soon becomes clear that Pym has been keeping secrets from both his family and his employers, the British Intelligence Service. Hiding out in a remote cottage in Devon, where he goes by the name of Mr Canterbury, Magnus begins to write his memoirs - retracing his rise and fall and revealing how Rick led him step by step into a double life of deception, broken promises and betrayal... This recording, adapted from the John le Carré novel by Rene Basilico, was believed lost from the BBC archive, but was rediscovered after almost twenty years and restored.
Satisfyingly complex... finishes in a rollercoaster of twists
—— Daily TelegraphAbsorbing and intriguing
—— Evening StandardOne of Britain's finest thriller writers
—— Time OutGoddard is clever and riveting
—— Stephen KingThe suspense mounts to a fine crescendo. A superior example of Goddard's velvet-cloaked menace
—— Kirkus ReviewsRobert Goddard's elegant prose and intelligence... place him in the company of such masters of historical suspense as John Fowles and Daphne du Maurier
—— San Francisco ChronicleGoddard is a master of the sly double and triple cross
—— Seattle TimesA compulsive read ... ingenious and deftly-handled
—— New HumanistIt is certainly the best novel I've read so far this year, and should mark Zeh as one of Europe's brightest younger novelists
—— Crime TimeInteresting and original novel
—— Literary ReviewClever and gripping
—— Boyd Tonkin , Independent Summer ReadsEvery chapter is taut, suspenseful, almost Hitchcock-esque. Zeh's style is fluent but also elegantly sparse... An absolute gem of a book.
—— The BookbagFrom every angle - character study, philosophical discussion or straightforward plot - it shines with crystalline intensity, and so far as one can tell, nothing is lost in the translation. Complex and supremely elegant, this is a book to relish
—— Joanna Hines , GuardianThis is a book and a half
—— Giles Broadbent , Wharf