Best 1983 Adventures (3)

By: Joshua Glenn
November 6, 2018

One in a series of 10 posts identifying Josh Glenn’s favorite 1983 adventure novels. Happy 35th anniversary!

John le Carré’s espionage adventure The Little Drummer Girl.

A covert operations agency within Mossad, Israel’s national intelligence agency, is desperate to infiltrate a Palestinian terrorist group that has bombed several Israeli targets in Europe — and take out Khalil, the group’s leader. Kurtz, the Smiley-like head of the clandestine agency, tasks his protegé, Gadi Becker, with recruiting Charlie, a struggling young English actress who has some vaguely pro-Palestinian sympathies, to pose as the grieving lover of Khalil’s recently killed brother, Salim. Gadi (whom Charlie calls “Joseph”) trains Charlie to behave as though she truly sympathizes with the Palestinian cause. Charlie begins to fall in love with Joseph — who is burned out, after fighting in several wars, and beginning to question whether Israel really has the moral high ground. When the time comes for Charlie to deceive — and help assassinate — the Palestinian terrorists in whose cause she once believed, will she succeed? The plot is a complex mechanism, full of surprises; Le Carré presents both sides of the issue; and the book is beautifully written.

Fun facts: Adapted into a disappointing 1984 film — starring Diane Keaton, Yorgo Voyagis, and Klaus Kinski — of the same title. William F. Buckley, reviewing the book for the New York Times, suggested that “terrorism and counterterrorism, intelligence work and espionage are… merely the vehicle for a book about love, anomie, cruelty, determination and love of country.”

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Best 1983 Adventures (3)

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