Best 1993 Adventures (8)

By: Joshua Glenn
July 9, 2020

One in a series of 10 posts identifying Josh Glenn’s favorite 1993 adventure novels.

John le Carré’s espionage adventure The Night Manager.

When billionaire Richard Onslow Roper, who traffics in arms and drugs, swans into a luxurious Zurich hotel late one wintry night, the hotel’s night manager is laying in wait. Jonathan Pine has been obsessed with bringing Roper down ever since a women he knew at a previous job — when he was night manager at the luxurious Queen Nefertiti hotel, in Cairo — was murdered after Pine incautiously helped her pass incriminating documents along to British intelligence. Now, another British intelligence department are planning an elaborate sting operation against Roper, and they require Pine’s help. This is the author’s first post-Cold War novel; although the enemy has changed, the familiar lineaments of a Le Carré joint are all here: an inter-agency turf war, crooked intelligence ops, double agents, a beautiful woman. Pine infiltrates Roper’s operation all too successfully, and finds himself involved in a scheme to turn a Colombian drug cartel into a full military operation. When it comes to bringing down Roper, rescuing the woman he loves, and saving his own skin, he’ll have to choose two of the above.

Fun facts: Harry Palfrey, legal advisor to the British Secret Intelligence Service, who first appeared in The Russia House, shows up here; so do one or two other minor Le Carré characters. A 2016 British TV adaptation, directed by Susanne Bier and starring Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie, Olivia Colman, David Harewood, Tom Hollander, and Elizabeth Debicki, was a success; a sequel is planned.

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Best 1993 Adventures (8)

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