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THE NIGHT MANAGER

by John le Carré ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 7, 1993

Le Carre returns to the same subject as his disappointingly episodic The Secret Pilgrim—the fate of espionage in the new world order—but now looks forward instead of backward, showing a not-quite innocent mangled between that new order and the old one, whose course le Carre has so peerlessly chronicled for 30 years. Jonathan Pine, night manager at a Cairo hotel, helps Arab playboy Freddie Hamid's mistress Madame Sophie photocopy papers linking him to arms mogul Richard Roper and, while he's at it, makes an extra copy to send to a friend in the Secret Service—only to find that the leak has gotten back to Freddie and that Jonathan's belated, guilty devotion to Sophie can't protect her from a fatal beating. Six months later, Jonathan, now working in Geneva, meets Roper in person and, vowing revenge, volunteers for Leonard Burr's fledgling government agency as the inside man who can supply actionable details of Roper's next arms- for-drugs deal. With the help of Whitehall mandarin Rex Goodhew, Burr sets up a plausibly shady dossier for Jonathan and stages the kidnapping of Roper's son so that Jonathan can foil the snatch and get invited aboard Roper's yacht. But even as Jonathan, still grieving for Sophie, finds himself attracted to Roper's bedmate Jed Marshall and overriding Burr's orders to stay out of Roper's papers, the boys in Whitehall—divided between independents like Goodhew, who want the old agencies broken up, and his cold-warrior nemesis Geoffrey Darker, who insists on maintaining centralized authority—are squabbling over control of the mission, with dire results for Jonathan, whose most dangerous enemies turn out to be his well-meaning masters back home. Despite the familiarity of the story's outlines, le Carre shows his customary mastery in the details—from Jonathan's self-lacerating momentum to the intricacies of interagency turf wars—and reveals once again why nobody writes espionage fiction with his kind of authority.

Pub Date: July 7, 1993

ISBN: 0345385764

Page Count: 416

Publisher: Knopf

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1993

SUSPENSE | THRILLER | SUSPENSE | ESPIONAGE | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE

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BOOK REVIEW

by John le Carré ; edited by Tim Cornwell ; illustrated by John le Carré

by John le Carré

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New York Times Bestseller

by Max Brooks ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 16, 2020

A tasty, if not always tasteful, tale of supernatural mayhem that fans of King and Crichton alike will enjoy.

Are we not men? We are—well, ask Bigfoot, as Brooks does in this delightful yarn, following on his bestseller World War Z (2006).

A zombie apocalypse is one thing. A volcanic eruption is quite another, for, as the journalist who does a framing voice-over narration for Brooks’ latest puts it, when Mount Rainier popped its cork, “it was the psychological aspect, the hyperbole-fueled hysteria that had ended up killing the most people.” Maybe, but the sasquatches whom the volcano displaced contributed to the statistics, too, if only out of self-defense. Brooks places the epicenter of the Bigfoot war in a high-tech hideaway populated by the kind of people you might find in a Jurassic Park franchise: the schmo who doesn’t know how to do much of anything but tries anyway, the well-intentioned bleeding heart, the know-it-all intellectual who turns out to know the wrong things, the immigrant with a tough backstory and an instinct for survival. Indeed, the novel does double duty as a survival manual, packed full of good advice—for instance, try not to get wounded, for “injury turns you from a giver to a taker. Taking up our resources, our time to care for you.” Brooks presents a case for making room for Bigfoot in the world while peppering his narrative with timely social criticism about bad behavior on the human side of the conflict: The explosion of Rainier might have been better forecast had the president not slashed the budget of the U.S. Geological Survey, leading to “immediate suspension of the National Volcano Early Warning System,” and there’s always someone around looking to monetize the natural disaster and the sasquatch-y onslaught that follows. Brooks is a pro at building suspense even if it plays out in some rather spectacularly yucky episodes, one involving a short spear that takes its name from “the sucking sound of pulling it out of the dead man’s heart and lungs.” Grossness aside, it puts you right there on the scene.

Pub Date: June 16, 2020

ISBN: 978-1-9848-2678-7

Page Count: 304

Publisher: Del Rey/Ballantine

Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2020

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2020

GENERAL SCIENCE FICTION & FANTASY | GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SCIENCE FICTION

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by Max Brooks

THEN SHE WAS GONE

by Lisa Jewell ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 24, 2018

Dark and unsettling, this novel’s end arrives abruptly even as readers are still moving at a breakneck speed.

Ten years after her teenage daughter went missing, a mother begins a new relationship only to discover she can't truly move on until she answers lingering questions about the past.

Laurel Mack’s life stopped in many ways the day her 15-year-old daughter, Ellie, left the house to study at the library and never returned. She drifted away from her other two children, Hanna and Jake, and eventually she and her husband, Paul, divorced. Ten years later, Ellie’s remains and her backpack are found, though the police are unable to determine the reasons for her disappearance and death. After Ellie’s funeral, Laurel begins a relationship with Floyd, a man she meets in a cafe. She's disarmed by Floyd’s charm, but when she meets his young daughter, Poppy, Laurel is startled by her resemblance to Ellie. As the novel progresses, Laurel becomes increasingly determined to learn what happened to Ellie, especially after discovering an odd connection between Poppy’s mother and her daughter even as her relationship with Floyd is becoming more serious. Jewell’s ( I Found You , 2017, etc.) latest thriller moves at a brisk pace even as she plays with narrative structure: The book is split into three sections, including a first one which alternates chapters between the time of Ellie’s disappearance and the present and a second section that begins as Laurel and Floyd meet. Both of these sections primarily focus on Laurel. In the third section, Jewell alternates narrators and moments in time: The narrator switches to alternating first-person points of view (told by Poppy’s mother and Floyd) interspersed with third-person narration of Ellie’s experiences and Laurel’s discoveries in the present. All of these devices serve to build palpable tension, but the structure also contributes to how deeply disturbing the story becomes. At times, the characters and the emotional core of the events are almost obscured by such quick maneuvering through the weighty plot.

Pub Date: April 24, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-5011-5464-5

Page Count: 368

Publisher: Atria

Review Posted Online: Feb. 5, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2018

GENERAL THRILLER & SUSPENSE | SUSPENSE | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP | SUSPENSE

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by Lisa Jewell

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BOOK REVIEW / Other side of the Wall: The night manager by John le Carre, Hodder pounds 15.99

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LITERARY genres come and go - and in some cases come again, like the New Gothic - but only one genre expired at the peak of its popularity, killed off in a single day not by taste but by history. When the Berlin Wall revealed itself to be porous on 10 November 1989, two lucrative professions were plunged into crisis: the espionage community; and the writers who for years had made a living out of writing Cold War thrillers.

Not surprisingly, perhaps, the reactions of both have been similar - an initial attempt to deny that anything has really changed, followed by a gradual diversification into related areas. The former spies are now said to be offering their intelligence-gathering skills to the highest bidder - whether big business or organised crime - while the writers are seeking substitutes for their lost Berlin and for the powerfully polarised currents of violence, deceit and potential global destruction which met at its divided heart.

As befits the most thoughtful and suggestive of the latter fraternity, John le Carre makes the solution to his problem the devious ways in which the newly redundant spymasters are attempting to solve theirs. With George Smiley safely pensioned off, the 'espiocrats' are running their 'Pure Intelligence' operation not from the Circus but from 'a grim tower block on the South Bank'. Pure, that is, as opposed to Applied, which is the remit of Enforcement, 'an under-funded, under- wanted agency' run by ex-intelligence officer Leonard Burr under the tutelage of Rex Goodhew, a Smiley-lookalike senior civil servant.

Burr and Goodhew's target in mounting Operation Limpet is Richard Onslow Roper, an upper- class shit with brains who is attempting to recoup his dwindling fortunes with a spectacular arms- for-drugs deal with Colombian cocaine gangs. Their weapon is Jonathan Pine, who, driven by a personal vendetta against Roper, gives up his job as the hotel 'night manager' of le Carre's deliberately symbolic title to mount an undercover operation designed to smash this deal.

Le Carre is one of the few British genre writers to have an ear for spoken language, and his ability to transcribe Whitehall bureaucratese is in evidence here once again: 'A revision of responsibilities is in no circumstances within the gift of rival agencies. Even assuming that Enforcement were prepared voluntarily to quit the field, the agencies are not empowered to carve up their responsibilities among themselves without reference to Steering.' He also essays the wilder flights of American jargon with almost equal panache: 'This Limpet thing is right off the wall. We're pygmies in this. Totally. The real game is right up there, it's orbital and it's now.'

But the gift of the gab is always dangerous for a writer: it runs the risk of colourful villains or minor characters upstaging the leads and wrecking the overall effect. Here, Roper and his assistant, Major Corkoran - a shabby fixer with a line in camp patter reminiscent of Scobie in Durrell's Alexandria Quartet - dominate the book to an extent that fatally exposes the jejune characterisation of Pine and his lover Jed, Roper's mistress. Le Carre works hard to build up Pine, but his heart is not in it, and the effect is of a sort of James Bond without the laughs: the multilingual, cosmopolitan, orphan son of a soldier-hero, brave yet modest despite being irresistible to women, an invincible fighting machine who remains silent under torture, is also a brilliant chef and good with kids, and wears his guilt at the betrayal of an earlier lover as a badge of a sensibility not otherwise in evidence.

Beside this pallid paragon, Roper - despite a rather desperate circus-style billing as 'the worst man in the world' - comes across as an attractive and credible straight-talker in the Lord McAlpine vein, and it's hardly surprising that the book perks up whenever he appears. The battle of nerves and wits between the two and, more importantly, between their allies and enemies in London and Washington, is handled with all le Carre's habitual skill, knowledge and attention to detail (although it's unlikely that an Irishman named Pat Flynn would choose the Orangemen's own Bushmills whiskey as his preferred tipple). But there is no real attempt to engage with the serious issues that are raised, or to tackle the moral ambiguities which characterise le Carre's earlier work.

The result is an efficient if rather old-fashioned thriller set in a firmly Manichean universe where the chief villain is called Darker, the women are all sexually available victims, and a last-reel escape allows the male and female lead to ride off into the sunset and breed horses.

(Photograph omitted)

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'The Night Manager': EW review

Senior Writer

Jonathan Pine is a former British soldier looking to escape the chaos and crookedness of our times. Yet quagmire chases him, and he can’t resist falling into it. While working the graveyard shift at a Cairo hotel during the Arab Spring, Sophie (Aure Atika), an equally worldweary woman sultry with danger, begs a favor that arouses his conscience, and other parts of him, too. The consequences draw Pine (Tom Hiddleston) into a twilight realm and suck us deep into The Night Manager , an ironic and engrossing saga about dark-knight heroism that continues an extraordinary year for smartly written, acting-driven short-form serials (see: American Crime ; The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story ).

The novel The Night Manager , written by British spy-fi master John le Carré in 1993, engaged the new reality of post–Cold War geopolitics and reflected a genre in transition. The miniseries updates the premise and speaks to a moment dull and dim with antiheroes. After the aforementioned Egyptian business leads to tragedy, Pine runs away again, taking post at a remote mountain resort. But a call to do-gooding—and opportunity for score-settling—finds him anew one evening when bogeyman arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) arrives with Jed (Elizabeth Debicki), his pale and beautiful girlfriend, and Corky (Tom Hollander), his foul, suspicious chief of staff. Duty and vendetta needle Pine to risk tattling on them. A British intelligence officer named Burr (Olivia Colman) prods him to take it further. Soon, Pine has masked himself with a false identity—a rogue named Andrew Birch—and infiltrated Roper’s family-tight operation in Palma de Mallorca, an island paradise full of temptations. Can Pine rope Roper without getting exposed or scorched by so much evil under the sun? Such is the screw-tightening suspense, impressively directed by Danish helmer Susanne Bier.

The Night Manager comes on like film noir, the kind where a flawed Everyman in a fallen world is seduced by desperate femmes fatales and a mesmerizing villain. But the warm, classical visual aesthetic is your first sign that this show has limited interest in affirming the cynicism of the genre or the current pop zeitgeist. Hiddleston’s deceptively passive Pine is a decidedly different take on the cool, privately tortured undercover operative at risk of losing himself in the murk of his work. Burr’s decency and patriotism (and her pregnancy) recall Frances McDormand’s Marge from Fargo . Sophie and Jed aren’t tempter vixens. Like Pine, they’re trapped souls who desire full, righteous lives—not hollow, sell-out lives.

Laurie’s Roper is the slyest creation. He’s an anti-Bond villain to Pine’s anti-Bond hero. He captivates us not with pure evil but with the possibility that he might only be a slimy international businessman, one with sincere romantic, philanthropic, and fatherly dimensions. Watching this death merchant delight in producing violent spectacle, collecting youth and beauty and grooming Pine to be the new “star” of his sick show, you wonder if Laurie is playing an arms dealer or a movie producer. A clever fable of heroic renewal, The Night Manager gives us a redemptive journey into a heart of darkness and a portrait of a genre mired in shadow pining for daylight. A–

BOOK VERSUS FILM: John Le Carre’s The Night Manager

The Night Manager is John Le Carre’s 14 th book, published in 1993. The story of ex-soldier-turned-hotelier-turned-spy Jonathan Pine was turned into a massively successful and lavish TV series in 2016, starring a veritable embarrassment of acting riches and exotic locations. But which did it better – the book or the show?

Jonathan Pine is a haunted man. Haunted by the memories of his time as a soldier involved in covert operations in Northern Ireland, and by a failed marriage, he’s distanced himself from his past by becoming the night manager in a string of high-class hotels.

During his time at one such hotel in Egypt he meets and falls in love with Sophie, the mistress of a local playboy who is involved in a deal with one Richard Onslow Roper. Roper is massively rich, surrounded by aristocratic cronies, and untouchable. He’s also completely untroubled by morals and happy to sell arms – under the guise of agricultural equipment – to the highest bidder. Sophie entrusts Jonathan with a list of what’s on the table – guns, tanks, missiles and chemical weapons – only to be used in the case of her meeting with ‘an accident’; but Jonathan, as an ex-soldier, can’t help but act on the information. He passes it on to a friend at the British Embassy. The deal folds. But Sophie ends up dead. Jonathan, with even more guilt on his hands, leaves Egypt.

He starts work at an exclusive hotel in Switzerland, where he meets ‘Dicky’ Roper in the flesh. In an attempt to avenge Sophie’s death, he passes information on Roper and his group onto British Intelligence, where it lands on the desk of Leonard Burr, head of a small MI5 task force. Burr, who’s been trying to stop Roper’s arms deals for some time, offers Jonathan the chance to bring him down by going undercover and infiltrating his circle of friends.

Driven by the desire for revenge, Jonathan becomes part of Roper’s inner circle, replacing his right hand man Corky and trying (and failing) to avoid falling for his partner Jed. Soon Jonathan, under a different identity, is living in Roper’s luxury compound in Nassau, flying in his private jet and signing the paperwork on arms deals worth millions of pounds. But will he get his man?

The TV Show

The action’s moved to more recent times – Jonathan’s now in Egypt during the Arab Spring uprising, and saw service in the Iraq, rather than Ireland – but we’re back in the same hotel.

We don’t learn quite so much about Jonathan, played by Tom Hiddleston in what’s basically a six hour James Bond audition; he can still charm the hotel guests, the ladies and more or less everyone around him without giving away much of himself, but we don’t really get the impression that he’s particularly haunted. Just a bit of a loner. But hey, he’s got a nice smile.

The GENIUS move of the TV show, though, is in casting Olivia Colman as Agent Burr (now Angela – she really doesn’t look like a Leonard, especially as she’s heavily pregnant). In the book Burr is a typical Le Carre spy; passionate in his own way, but otherwise a slightly faceless man in grey. Here, Burr is warm and stroppy and takes no shit from anybody whilst being driven by compassion for the victims of Roper and the buyers of his ‘agricultural equipment’.

Actually, the entire cast is a genius move. Hugh Laurie’s portrayal of Dicky Roper is by turns convincingly evil and absolutely charming; in the opening scenes of Episode 2 – a family party at an island restaurant – he holds court affectionately over his friends and is genuinely warm and loving towards his son; who wouldn’t want a seat at that table? Tom Hollander as the loyal and increasingly bitter Corky is a show stealer – his meltdown at a later restaurant scene, aware that he’s been replaced by Jonathan, the ‘human hand grenade’ who’ll blow up in Roper’s face, is fascinatingly uncomfortable to watch.

So Which Format Does It Better?

There are several points in which the book and TV show differ, which I’m going to avoid so as not to give away too many spoilers (because if you haven’t watched it or read it, you should), but here’s a few which I think are fairly safe to divulge.

In the book, Jonathan’s cover – his metamorphosis from a charming hotelier into a desperate man on the run – is convincing, although possibly much too long. He doesn’t suddenly change character and turn into a thug; he relies on that charm as usual, mixing with his new West Country neighbours under the name Jack Linden, a few hints that his business isn’t completely legitimate, but he’s a nice fella, talks to the locals, sits in the pub with them.

And then BOOM! Jack Linden leaves town, with a suspicious deep cut on his hand, his business partner’s missing, and the boat he’d just sailed into Falmouth is full of drugs. Jonathan, under a false passport, ends up in Canada, where he works as a hotel chef until he gets ANOTHER false passport after an affair with a local woman – someone else he now feels guilty about – then gets a string of jobs on luxury yachts until he works his way to the island restaurant where he meets up with Roper again. PHEW.

It goes on and on – but it works. In the TV show he just turns up in the West Country, becomes an outlandish thug and then somehow ends up on the Mallorcan island where that family meal takes place. This might’ve worked (possibly) with another actor, but not with Tom Hiddleston, who’s just far too NICE for it to be convincing. But it does mean we get a brief shot of him showering naked under a waterfall, so it’s not all bad. BOOK 1 – TV 0

The book spends a lot more time focusing on the politics and powerplay between the different intelligence agencies, and after a while I just kind of lost the plot; there are so many different characters involved, none of them saying what they mean (they’re spies and civil servants for god’s sake!). The TV show kept this struggle between the agencies, but made it far less complicated with fewer players and succeeded where the book didn’t – it kept my interest. But having said that, if you’re a Le Carre fan, that’s what his books are all about. So I think BOOK 1 – TV 1 , but committed spy novel readers might disagree.

Where I think the TV show absolutely beats the book hands down is in it’s portrayal of Roper, Corky et al. Bad guys are nearly always more interesting than good ones, and this lot are no exception. In the book, apart from a brief meeting with Roper at the Swiss hotel in the beginning, we don’t see him again until well over 200 pages in. In the TV show, episode 2 starts at his luxurious (and fecking massive) villa in Mallorca and we pretty much stick with him, bar the odd outing back to MI5/6 in London, until the end. And that’s much more exciting to watch (the other thing I’m glad the TV show did was move Roper from Nassau to Mallorca, because Le Carre’s attempts at the local accent in the book were excruciating). BOOK 1 – TV 2

The ending of the book also differs from the TV show – I’m not going into details how! – and while I found the TV ending much more satisfying, the book is possibly more realistic. So that’s a draw. BOOK 2 – TV 3

Whenever you compare a movie or TV show with the source it’s bound to be difficult – it’s like comparing apples to oranges – so in the end it’s about personal taste. If you want a gritty, twisty spy thriller, read the book. But if like me you want a marvellous confection of glamorous locations, the odd bit of sexiness and some amazing performances, the TV show is hard to beat.

BIO :  Fiona Leitch is a screenwriter based on the sunny South Coast of the UK. She specialises in thriller and comedy screenplays with feisty, funny, female protagonists, and is a sucker for a happy ending. Recent work includes spy/crime thriller ‘Lost in Berlin’, which was a finalist in New York’s Athena Film Festival/IRIS Screenwriting Lab 2017; sci fi drama ‘Paradise’ and black comedy/drama ‘Dead in Venice’, both of which reached the final rounds of BBC Writersroom initiatives. Visit her website, HERE .

3 thoughts on “BOOK VERSUS FILM: John Le Carre’s The Night Manager”

Well done analysis! I have nothing more to add but felt sad that there were no previous comments. Cheer!

that was supposed to be “Cheers!”

Is a woman like Jed in the book? She seems out of place and unnecessary and annoying

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Movie Reviews

Tv/streaming, great movies, chaz's journal, contributors, black writers week, tom hiddleston and hugh laurie shine in amc's brilliant "the night manager".

Film and television have led us to believe that most espionage takes place in darkness. Men meet in dark alleys, secluded nightspots or private locations. One thing that the great Susanne Bier gets about modern espionage is that it often comes accompanied by opulence. Much of her brilliant adaptation of “The Night Manager,” starting tonight at 10/9c on AMC and running for the next five weeks, takes place in the blinding sun. Rich men sit on verandas, making deals that cause death around the world. It is only one aspect of Bier’s adaptation of John le Carré’s 1993 novel that feels fresh and engaging. Nearly everything about “The Night Manager” works, from the high-powered cast to the gorgeous locales. And it’s thematically dense as well, as le Carré and Bier examine the games people play with each other to get what they need, and how far we’re willing to go to deceive for the greater good.

Jonathan Pine (the incredible Tom Hiddleston ) is the man who gets the wealthy what they need. He is the night manager of a very wealthy hotel in Cairo, the guy who can literally acquire anything for his clientele. When one of his guests basically reaches out to him for protection, he nervously acquiesces, taking a document from her, regarding an arms deal about to go down, to make a copy for her. The peek into the world of high-powered weapons trading teaches him of the existence of one of its power players, Richard Roper ( Hugh Laurie ). After things in Cairo go sideways during the Arab Spring, Pine finds himself in a unique position, enlisted by Angela Burr ( Olivia Colman ) to go undercover in Roper’s inner circle, where he meets Roper’s girlfriend Jed ( Elizabeth Debicki ) and his right-hand man Corkoran ( Tom Hollander ). Pine gets a whole new identity, losing himself in Roper’s world of glamour, but never forgetting the human cost of what this all means. He draws closer to Jed and raises the suspicions of Corkoran. It’s all wonderfully le Carré.

Le Carré and the mini-series format are ideal companions in that his narratives often demand more than the feature film running time allows (this was nearly adapted several times in the 20 years since its publication but no screenwriter could compress it to a movie length). It’s not just because of the density of the plot either, but more for the tone that the length of “The Night Manager” allows. We don’t even really see Roper for most of the first episode, turning him into a Jaws-esque legend before Laurie even has the chance to inject this performance with the perfect balance of wit and pure evil. He’s fantastic. We get notable character development for roles like Corkoran and Jed, who would have been mere plot devices if the narrative had to be compressed. Debicki and Hollander are both excellent.

Having said all of that, “The Night Manager” belongs to Hiddleston, someone who is equally convincing as the face of a glamorous lifestyle in Cairo and a veteran soldier hell-bent on vengeance. In fact, the pulse of “The Night Manager” comes from that transition, as we watch a man who has put his dark past behind him slowly bring it back to meet his present day needs. Hiddleston is so convincing that one could easily see him playing 007 next, although I’ve long been convinced that he can do just about anything he sets his mind to. He’s that good.

There’s also something to be said for a project like “The Night Manager” being directed by one filmmaker for every episode, the talented woman behind “Brothers” and the Golden Globe-winning “ In a Better World .” Bier brings a cinematic language to “The Night Manager,” and a deeper understanding of character than we often get in projects that hinge on espionage. She understands that it’s not about the twists and turns of the spy game but the impact it has on those who are playing it.

Brian Tallerico

Brian Tallerico is the Managing Editor of RogerEbert.com, and also covers television, film, Blu-ray, and video games. He is also a writer for Vulture, The Playlist, The New York Times, and GQ, and the President of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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The Night Manager: John le Carré (Penguin Modern Classics) Paperback – 7 Nov. 2013

In The Night Manager , John le Carré's first post-Cold War novel, an ex-soldier helps British Intelligence penetrate the secret world of ruthless arms dealers. 'Le Carré is the equal of any novelist now writing in English' Guardian 'A marvellously observed relentless tale' Observer At the start of it all, Jonathan Pine is merely the night manager at a luxury hotel. But when a single attempt to pass on information to the British authorities - about an international businessman at the hotel with suspicious dealings - backfires terribly, and people close to Pine begin to die, he commits himself to a battle against powerful forces he cannot begin to imagine. In a chilling tale of corrupt intelligence agencies, billion-dollar price tags and the truth of the brutal arms trade, John le Carré creates a claustrophobic world in which no one can be trusted. 'Complex and intense ... page-turning tension' San Francisco Chronicle 'When I was under house arrest I was helped by the books of John le Carré ... they were a journey into the wider world ... These were the journeys that made me feel that I was not really cut off from the rest of humankind' Aung San Suu Kyi 'One of those writers who will be read a century from now' Robert Harris

• Print length 480 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Penguin Classics
• Publication date 7 Nov. 2013
• Dimensions 21.6 x 13.8 x 2.87 cm
• ISBN-10 0141393017
• ISBN-13 978-0141393018
• See all details

From the Publisher

Product description

From the back cover, about the author.

John le Carré was born in 1931. For six decades, he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the University of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5 & 6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead , in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold , secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy , The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People . At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel , was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel, A Legacy of Spies , appeared in 2017. He died on 12 December 2020. His posthumous novel, Silverview, was published in 2021.

Product details

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Classics; 1st edition (7 Nov. 2013)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 480 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0141393017
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0141393018
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 21.6 x 13.8 x 2.87 cm
• 1,113 in Spy Stories & Tales of Intrigue
• 4,613 in Literary Fiction (Books)
• 9,225 in Mysteries (Books)

About the author

John le carré.

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.

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The Night Manager

John le carre. alfred a knopf inc, $24 (0pp) isbn 978-0-679-42513-7.

Reviewed on: 05/31/1993

Genre: Fiction

Hardcover - 978-0-517-39616-2

Hardcover - 978-0-517-13763-5

Mass Market Paperbound - 480 pages - 978-0-345-48032-3

Mass Market Paperbound - 480 pages - 978-0-345-38576-5

Paperback - 751 pages - 978-0-679-74728-4

Paperback - 978-0-345-41830-2

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Review: Le Carré’s ‘The Night Manager,’ With Amoral Arms Dealing

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By Mike Hale

• April 18, 2016

The novels of John le Carré are steeped in shadows and ambiguity. So it’s a little disconcerting that “The Night Manager,” the first television adaptation of a le Carré novel in 25 years, is so bright and straightforward and that, despite a few nasty but necessary killings, it’s so clear who we’re supposed to root for. If TV shows had jaws, this one’s would be square.

Mr. le Carré has been promoting this six-episode British-American mini-series, shown last month on BBC and here beginning on Tuesday on AMC, and he is an executive producer along with two of his sons. But the screenwriter David Farr and the director Susanne Bier (“I n a Better World ”) were licensed to change the period (from the first gulf war to the present) and the locations (an evil arms dealer’s yacht becomes a fantastical Spanish villa; Central America becomes the Middle East) and to soften the ending in ways that le Carré aficionados will probably abhor.

Despite the updating, the production feels thoroughly old-fashioned. The opening episodes, when the amorality of the arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie) is being linked, with the filmmaking equivalent of heavy chalk outlines, to his extravagant lifestyle, feel like a Bond movie without the humor. The middle stages, when the revenge-minded hotel manager Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston) infiltrates Roper’s organization and sets eyes on Roper’s young girlfriend, Jed Marshall (Elizabeth Debicki), play like a stiff British take on a glossy ’80s or ’90s American melodrama — “Against All Odds” or “Revenge,” with Mr. Hiddleston doing a very reserved version of a Jeff Bridges or Kevin Costner romantic lead.

The natural tendency is to compare Mr. Hiddleston’s performance to that of Alec Guinness as George Smiley in the defining le Carré adaptation, “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” in 1979. But that would be unfair, and not just because Mr. Guinness was one of the great actors of his or any time. Pine in “The Night Manager” is a different and less interesting variety of hero than the tortured bureaucrat Smiley. A former soldier recruited by British intelligence because of a coincidental connection to Roper, he’s a man of action whose primary story arc is that in trying to avenge the death of one woman, he puts the life of another in danger.

Nothing very ambiguous there. And Mr. Farr and Ms. Bier, who make the story’s chronology linear and emphasize its scenic and suspenseful elements, haven’t found a way to reproduce the inner life that Mr. le Carré gives Pine, largely through the filigree of his writing. Mr. Hiddleston, whose style doesn’t tend toward leading-man swagger, relays Pine’s ambivalence over the violence he has to commit but doesn’t have much else to play.

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Miniseries – The Night Manager

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The Night Manager 's smart writing and riveting story are elevated all the more by Hugh Laurie and Tom Hiddleston's captivating performances.

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Tom Hiddleston

Jonathan Pine

Olivia Colman

Angela Burr

Hugh Laurie

Richard Onslow Roper

Tom Hollander

Major Corkoran

Elizabeth Debicki

Jed Marshall

David Harewood

Joel Steadman

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The Night Manager review

Episodes: 6

Premiered: 2016

Duration: 1 hr

A visually stunning spy thriller based on a 1993 novel by John le Carré, The Night Manager is a lush six-part serial that oozes pure class in every scene.

Tom Hiddleston is Jonathan Pine, an ex-soldier and now night manager of a luxury hotel in Cairo. He’s recruited by British intelligence agent – the ever-brilliant Olivia Colman – to infiltrate the inner circle of ‘the worst man in the world’, arms dealer Dicky Roper – played with glee by a career best Hugh Laurie. Things, as you’d hope, do not go strictly to plan.

Elizabeth Debicki, Tom Hollander and Alistair Petrie provide support for this thriller that looks every penny of its not insignificant £30m budget.

Here’s Stuart’s episode-by-episode The Night Manager review.

The Night Manager : episode 1 review

By Stuart Barr on 

March 28, 2016

Adapted from John le Carré’s 1993 novel – his first post-cold war espionage thriller – The Night Manager is BBC drama at its most lavish. Featuring an A-list cast headed up by Tom Hiddleston, Hugh Laurie and Olivia Colman, a screenplay from acclaimed writer David Farr ( Hanna , Spooks ), and directed by the Danish director Susanne Bier whose 2010 film In A Better World won an Oscar for best foreign language film.

Farr updates le Carré’s novel from the early nineties using the political backdrop of The Arab Spring for a dramatic opening. It is 2011 and former British soldier Jonathan Pine (Hiddleston) is the night manager of a luxury hotel in Cairo. The Revolution against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is making his western guests nervous. Flirtatious Egyptian guest Sophie Alekan (Aure Atika) asks him to photocopy some documents. He is shocked to discover they appear to show an arms deal. The seller is Richard Roper (Lurie), a billionaire philanthropist.

Pine shares the documents with an Embassy contact who passes them to British Intelligence. The deal comes to the attention of Angela Burr (Colman), head of an international anti-arms unit in London. Burr attempts to intervene, but it is politically expedient for Roper’s sale to go forward. Better to arm the devils you know. This has tragic results for Pine who has become romantically involved with his source.

Four years later Pine is working as night manager at a resort in Switzerland when his path crosses once more with Roper’s.

This opening episode was all about setting up the chess board. Key pieces were introduced with just enough information to capture attention but a lot was held back. Pine is granted a convincing motivation to pass information about Roper’s activities in Switzerland to Burr, but we are given little to explain Burr’s particular enmity towards him. Undercurrents of class run through the tale. Pine plays the part of the archetypal English gentleman well, but when face to face with Roper and his ‘chums’ (including his officious right hand man played by Tom Hollander) he is instantly treated as a servant. Pine has an air of righteousness, but his profession suggests a man hiding from, or running away from the past and trying to isolate himself from people.

The gruff, northern Burr also has class issues to deal with in Westminster but with the added obstacle of her gender. A meeting with a ministerial aide is pointedly ended when the man retires to his club which has a no women policy. Glaring across the Thames at the gleaming MI-6 building, it is clear that Burr has been cast out into the relative wilds of Victoria by her inability to penetrate the old boys’ network of British Intelligence.

The episode ended with a meeting between Burr and Pine. When asked why he had turned in the documents in Cairo, Pine’s response was marvellously proper: “If there’s a man selling a private arsenal to an Egyptian crook and he’s English… and you’re English… and those weapons can cause a lot of pain to a lot of people. Then you just do it.”

Glossy and perfectly cast, with the sort of international locations that you would expect from a Bond film, The Night Manager was gripping and intriguing entertainment. This opening episode merely hinted at the larger story to come but contained enough to bait the hook and bring you back next week.

Did you tune in for The Night Manager episode 1? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Read Stuart’s review of The Night Manager episode 2 here.

The Night Manager

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The Night Manager : episode 2 review

February 22, 2016

Still catching up on The Night Manager episode 2? Read Stuart’s review of episode 1 here.

Beginning in ‘Mallorca, Spain’, Nina Simone sings ‘Plain Gold Ring’ on the soundtrack as Jed (Elizabeth Debicki), the  trophy girlfriend of arms dealer Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie), selects lingerie in hazy sunlight. The dressing is interrupted by a call. A strained conversation with her mother follows, Jed promises money and asks after ‘Billy’ (a son?). That she is not involved with Roper for pure romance is not a shock, but is Jed trapped in her situation or a gold digger?

Roper and guests visit a seaside restaurant. As Jed dances with his young son Daniel there is an attempted robbery that turns into a kidnapping. The men try to abscond with the boy, but Pine is watching them from a kitchen. The story then flashes back to explain how he came to be working as a chef in that particular Chiringuito.

To set up Pine with the perfect back story that will make him interesting to Roper, he is given a fake identity and sent to Devon with orders to make mischief. Arriving in a small village with a general store out of the nineteen fifties – they seem to only have eggs and a couple of tins of soup on the shelves, there is clearly a gap in the market for a SPAR – Pine sets himself up as a drug dealer to engineer a criminal background and a reason to leave the country.

So when he apparently foils the kidnapping attempt in Spain and gets severely beaten in the process, Roper is quick to bring Pine to his home while sinister fixer Lance Corcoran (Tom Hollander) runs a background check. Corcoran is not entirely convinced, with Pine telling him that if he is found to be “stringing us along” he will “hood you and hang you up by those lovely ankles until the truth falls out of you by gravity.”

This was another fine episode building intrigue and character depth. Colman’s intense performance makes it clear that Burr’s vendetta is personal even as reasons remain elusive. The Etonian ranks of ‘the River House’ – the informal name for MI-6’s Vauxhall HQ – casually condescend to Burr and her “modest enforcement agency”, but she uses this condescension against them. Teaming with American agent Joel Steadman (David Harewood), Burr feeds them information but keeps Pine’s undercover work hidden. This is a dangerous game – a death in episode 1 may have been due to leaked information. One might reasonably question the how wise it was to discuss Pine after a meeting with MI-6, standing by the Thames in front of one of the most CCTV camera encrusted buildings on the planet. But it was a nice shot.

The Night Manager plays with the tropes of escapist fantasy spy thrillers while also having the grit of more serious espionage dramas. From the elegant opening titles – an exploding RPG transformed into a cocktail glass, a spinning tea set becomes the barrel of a revolver – to exotic locations including, in this episode, Mallorca, Switzerland, and… er… Devon, sexual conquests and Hiddlestone’s tailoring, the spirit of Bond is invoked. However, the plotting and psychological complexity of the characters is all le Carré.

It is a difficult balancing act, but the series has deftly skipped across the high wire so far. We will see if it continues to impress as the stakes are increased.

Did you tune in for The Night Manager episode 2? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Read Stuart’s review of The Night Manager episode 3 here.

The Night Manager : episode 3 review

February 29, 2016

Still catching up on The Night Manager episode 3? Read Stuart’s review of episode 2 here.

After foiling a (staged) kidnap attempt, Jonathan Pine has infiltrated suspected arms dealer Richard Roper’s Mallorca home – but men as powerful as Roper do not achieve such heights without some amount of paranoia and Pine is closely observed.

Pine needs his wits to get information to Angela Burr – who recruited him to go undercover. His request to take Roper’s son into town is granted, but they are accompanied by suspicious armed chaperones. Clutching a tourist guide, the pregnant Burr passes unnoticed by the bodyguards allowing Pine to deliver a coded message warning that Roper’s right hand man Corkorian is a threat. To counter this Burr’s team create suspicion that Corkorian is alienating business partners with his drinking and flamboyant homosexuality. Roper’s Spanish contact has become wracked with guilt following his daughter’s suicide and the team exploit this to turn him and plant suspicions.

A second front of intrigue opens in Westminster’s corridors of power. Burr’s boss, senior civil servant Rex Mayhew, is keeping her operation (code named Limpet) secret from MI-6, but when he’s called into a meeting with the parliamentary under-secretary he’s pressured to drop the operation by MI-6 and the CIA. Mayhew refuses, but it seems clear that elements in the Intelligence community do not want Roper investigated.

Pine is moving closer to Roper’s girlfriend Jed. This is a dangerous flirtation and Jed also has secrets to keep. Investigating Roper’s office, Pine discovers a blond hair suggesting she is also collecting information on the operation despite her earlier insistence that she has no interest in Roper’s business. The question of why and for whom is left frustratingly unanswered.

This episode saw Pine move from the fringes into the heart of Roper’s operation through guile and manipulation. In kicking Corkorian out of the nest, a potentially deadly enemy has been set up. It is further hinted that Roper’s arms deal may in fact be unofficially backed from within the British establishment. If MI-6 become aware of the identity of Burr’s inside man, things are likely to get very difficult for Pine.

As the reptilian but charming Roper, Hugh Laurie got more screen time this episode. Starring in the US series House moved Laurie away from purely comic roles but The Night Manager positively buries such associations. Laurie was particularly terrific as Roper when explaining his nihilistic worldview: “children grow up thinking the adult world is ordered, rational, fit for purpose. It’s crap. Becoming a man is realising that it’s all rotten. Realising how to celebrate that rottenness, that’s freedom”. The speech was laced with threat, but we have yet to see Roper’s ruthlessness at close range.

Episode 3 ended with Pine as a new fixture in Roper’s organisation, but with the threat of Burr’s operation being blown open by establishment interests. Pine’s position is also made precarious by his relationship with Jed. How much does Roper actually know? Is his acceptance of Pine into the inner sanctum actually an example of keeping his enemies closer? Episode four cannot come quickly enough.

Did you tune in for The Night Manager episode 3? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Read Stuart’s review of The Night Manager episode 4 here.

The Night Manager episode 4 review

March 7, 2016

Still catching up on The Night Manager episode 4? Read Stuart’s review of episode 3 here.

The Night Manager episode 4 will be forever known to a section of the actor’s committed fan base as the one where you see Tom Hiddleston’s buttocks. But it was also the episode where things started to get dangerous.

Pine (Hiddleston) receives another new identity as Andrew Birch, a proxy for the latest arms deal arranged by Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie). Roper has evaded justice to date because of how skilfully he hides behind front men.

It had been simmering in the previous episode but Pine’s attraction to Roper’s girlfriend Jed (Elizabeth Debicki) finally boiled over in a torrid bedroom scene. One might think he would have more sense given how his previous relationship with an arms dealer’s girlfriend ended.

Despite attempts to be clandestine, the flirtation has not gone unnoticed by the poisonous Corcoran (Tom Hollander) who nearly blows everything wide open in an uncomfortable restaurant scene with a toast to “the lovers” and thinly veiled taunts to Roper “the blind man who cannot see the human bloody hand grenade in front of his bloody eyes.” Pine manages to emerge from the situation with grace, but has a seed of doubt been planted in Roper? Whether those doubts are regarding Jed and Pine or concern ‘good old Corky’ becoming a drunken liability is unclear.

There is a growing sense that Pine is attracted to adrenaline and danger, which may be why he is eager to jump into bed with Jed despite it being obviously a very stupid thing to do. Pine is also clearly seduced by Roper’s lavish lifestyle. When he is shown a bank statement for the company Roper has put him in charge of, you can practically see dollar signs flash in his eyes.

Finally we learned some of the reasons for Burr’s personal hatred of Roper with a harrowing tale of a gas attack on a school in Iraq. Roper was not behind this in any way, but he was present and saw the horrific effects of mustard gas and sarin on children – and it was because of this that he decided there was a market to sell sarin. Burr saw dead children. Roper saw a business opportunity. It is a scene powerfully played by Olivia Colman and a reminder of the horror funding Roper’s lifestyle.

In London, a clumsy attempt to intimidate Burr’s boss Mayhew (Douglas Hodge) only reinforces his resolve and increases her funding. Pine has supplied Burr with a paper trail demonstrating that Roper is being aided in his arms deals by corruption from within MI-6. In fact this corruption may go beyond the ‘River House’, when Mayhew reveals the evidence to the parliamentary under-secretary who wants Burr replaced, the news gets back to Roper. Whitehall is leaking all over the place. With MI-6 now aware that there is a mole in Roper’s operation, Burr’s team must scramble to divert suspicion away from Pine.

When Burr’s team intercept a late night phone call between Jed and Pine and attempt to pull him out of the operation Pine has other ideas. Acting the maverick he exposes them without revealing his own complicity. Is he going rogue? How much do we really know about this man?

Did you tune in for The Night Manager episode 4? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Read Stuart’s review of The Night Manager episode 5 here.

The Night Manager episode 5 review

March 14, 2016

Still catching up on The Night Manager episode 5? Read Stuart’s review of episode 4 here.

The Night Manager ’s previous episode saw Jonathan Pine apparently going rogue when his intelligence handlers tried to pull him out of Roper’s operation, leaving Angela Burr unsure if Pine has been turned.

Vested and powerful interests in the British establishment want Roper’s arms deal to succeed – there is talk of ‘the national interest’ but really it comes down to people lining their pockets. Despite Burr’s efforts to keep the investigation secret, Roper knows there is a leak in his operation and suspects everyone. He reveals his suspicions to Pine, stating “anyone can betray anyone, Jonathan”. Is this an act of tactical stupidity on Roper’s part, or does he enjoy an atmosphere of misrule?

For four episodes we have seen only the glamour of the arms trade: Roper’s private island; his jet; Michelin starred restaurants; tailored suits; a trophy girlfriend with a wardrobe of diaphanous kaftans. Who wouldn’t be tempted by such a life? However, as Roper brings his prospective buyer to a remote area of Turkey near the border with Syria, we finally witness the brutal reality of both his trade and his personality. Posing for photo opportunities with refugee children, while trading in the very weapons that have displaced these people.

With Pine serving as ringmaster, Roper stages a demonstration of his wares that is pure circus. Tracer bullets light up the night sky, drones are shot out of the air with missiles, cluster bombs turn a village into dust, and in a showstopper finale a napalm drop turns the landscape into a vision out of Dante. Later Pine will learn that the deserted village was recently inhabited, its denizens forcibly evicted to provide Roper with a sandcastle to kick over. However, not all the inhabitants were able to leave in time.

As Roper, Hugh Laurie has, until this point, been charming with a dash of sinister – but in The Night Manager episode 5 his mask slips to reveal something very ugly. He has his girlfriend Jed flown in and trotted out like a prize filly in front of mercenaries to humiliate her. In private he becomes abusive. His former right hand man Corky – whose role Pine supplanted – is on hand to further stoke suspicions. Knowing that Corkorian suspects him of having an affair with Jed, Pine desperately tries to get information to Burr and move Roper’s suspicions towards ‘good old Corky’.

Back in London, Burr is increasingly politically isolated. MI-6 chief Dromgoole has her under conspicuous surveillance and arrives on her doorstep late at night to make vague threats. When Pine’s information that Roper is using an aid convoy to transport his arms across the Turkish border, Burr has a last chance to snare her quarry.

Director Susanne Bier switched out the the glossy sun drenched palate of earlier episodes for desert sand and khaki, taking The Night Manager into an uglier world of refugee camps and mercenaries. As the episode came to an end it found Roper smugly triumphant: “they didn’t watch the cups you see”, he tells Pine. Still with his cover apparently intact, Pine is horrified to find out their next destination is Cairo and the very hotel where he was once the night manager.

Did you tune in for The Night Manager episode 5? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!

Read Stuart’s review of The Night Manager episode 6 here.

The Night Manager episode 6 review

March 21, 2016

Spoilers for The Night Manager episode 6 below. Still catching up? Read Stuart’s review of episode 5 here.

Angela Burr and Jonathan Pine both find themselves in tight spots at the beginning of this concluding episode.

After failing to find arms in Roper’s aid convoy, Burr is hauled in front of an enquiry facing the very people she suspects of covertly working with him. Meanwhile, Pine is unwillingly back in Cairo where Roper’s associate Freddie Hamid may recognise and connect him to the girlfriend killed for leaking details of a deal four years earlier.

But Pine and Burr gain a second chance to expose Roper – dependent upon the stealing of some documents from his hotel safe. To do this, Pine must ask Jed to risk her life, find the safe’s code and take the documents without Roper discovering they are missing.

The Night Manager episode 6 brought the series to a suspenseful conclusion, but also raised nagging questions. The most perplexing being ‘is Roper an idiot?’ Aware his operation has a mole, who should he suspect is feeding information to his enemies? Jed, his girlfriend of some years; Sandy Langbourne, the business associate with almost as much to lose; Corky, the loyal psychopath; or Pine, a charming stranger who seems extremely interested in his business?

Roper was awfully quick to accept Pine’s story that Corky was the traitor and that he killed him in self defence. But was Roper playing a long game to smoke out those acting against his interests? A veiled conversation with Pine in this episode suggested this when Roper tells Pine “even traitors can be forgiven.”

However, when he finally stumbled into the snare Pine had set up for him Roper seemed genuinely shocked. “It’s a very rare thing Jonathan Pine, for me to trust a person. But you were special. I knew it the first moment I saw you.” Almost touching were it not for the fact that he had just had his girlfriend brutally tortured.

As Roper was finally caught, Burr dryly remarked “he deserves it”, but what has she actually achieved? One less arms dealer perhaps, but the trade remains. Those in Westminster who greased wheels for Roper continue to be in power. And what of the three hundred million pounds Pine took as leverage to keep Jed alive? He doesn’t give this back. Where did it go? Will Pine’s bank manager be very happy come Monday morning? If so, does this knock the shine off his halo?

Performances have gone a long way towards keeping our disbelief suspended. As Pine, Hiddleston brought a stylish blankness to the character making it easy to suspect that he might become seduced by the glamour of Roper’s world. Hugh Laurie convinced us Roper was more cunning than he was and always ensured an edge of cold steel was visible behind his charm. Olivia Colman as Burr brought earthiness, grounding the series in a recognisable reality whenever private jets and island retreats threatened to make it seem like fantasy.

In The Night Manager , there has been tension between the shadow world of espionage and the glamorous, sun drenched, playboy fantasy of Roper’s world. Director Susanne Bier has done a tremendous job making this world compelling and attractive, but perhaps at the expense of getting dirty in the grease and blood of the arms trade. Bier and writer David Farr pulled the story together with an exciting climax – but one that was a little bit too neat.

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Brief Encounters

By Emily Nussbaum

There’s a lot to be said for the six-episode cable drama. If it doesn’t work, no great loss—that’s only two nights wasted, not several years. It’s a welcome gift in an era when too many shows arrive with the scary caveat “The fifth episode is when things get good!”

Brevity is one advantage of AMC’s “The Night Manager,” an elegant but ultimately empty John le Carré adaptation, starring Hugh Laurie. Based on le Carré’s 1993 spy novel of the same name, “The Night Manager” has been updated, from the Colombian drug wars to the Arab Spring. But there’s little here that’s new under the Egyptian sun. The story concerns a repressed, beautiful, tormented but decent hotel manager in Cairo named Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston), who gets recruited to infiltrate a criminal cartel. The first episode features overwrought sequences of doomed love, as the camera peeks showily through spiral bannisters; the second is when things get good. But even then the appeal is pure mood: in this high-end universe, everything feels at once corrupt, delectable, and melancholy, with that quality of “world-weariness” which serves as an aesthetic simulacrum of sophistication. The show is what many American viewers consider adult drama—it’s British and expensive-looking and involves movie stars, among other things—but it’s just an old recipe made with artisanal ingredients. If you’ve been watching the FX series “The Americans,” a far riskier, more wrenching examination of similar themes, it’s hard to take “The Night Manager” seriously.

Still, Hugh Laurie has a wonderful time grimacing nihilistically as Richard Roper, “the worst man in the world,” a philanthropist who is also a secret arms dealer. Elizabeth Debicki is excellent as his self-aware arm candy, Jed, lending vulnerability and humor to a character who would otherwise make very little sense. Sadly, Olivia Colman is wasted as Angela Burr, the pregnant head of a British intelligence agency—and the character’s gender switch (in the book, Burr was male) is a progressive gesture without any weight. The change of venue to the Middle East, too, feels well intentioned but artificial. As episodes pass, the plot twists become increasingly hard to buy, since Roper makes such clumsy errors in judgment—like ignoring “secret” lovers who are practically making “let’s do it” finger gestures—that he comes across as less Dr. No and more Mr. Magoo.

You may want to gaze into Hiddleston’s Aegean-blue eyes anyway. The show is engineered to make you want things—like “Downton Abbey,” it’s essentially aspirational. You’ll want a luxurious vacation in Zermatt or Majorca (but not in Cairo or dreary London). You’ll want pale-blue lingerie. You’ll want to kiss someone so irresistible that you offer him top-secret documents and answer personal questions, even though you have no reasonable motive to do either of those things. You’ll likely want Hiddleston to play James Bond, the role for which this whole show operates as an audition.

“The Night Manager” works best during liquid scenes of chaos, particularly one strong early sequence in which a fancy dinner party turns into a terrifying kidnapping. As the characters dance, the camera becomes one of them, letting our eyes flicker, in succession, over a power broker spinning his nanny; the man’s wife seething in the background; and then a mistress in a moment of fraught joy, swaying with her lover’s little boy. Lovely, allusive passages like that suggest a much better, more subtle adaptation nested inside this one. Silk and secret codes do satisfy certain appetites for two nights. But the spell fades fast, like a boozy sunset.

As I watched, my mind kept drifting to a different British-made six-episode series, “Happy Valley,” which haunted me for months after I watched it, particularly a final sequence that was more unsettling than many entire shows. It’s difficult to write about television like this—adult crime thrillers—because, inevitably, it means ruining plot twists. So fair warning: this review contains spoilers. Stop reading and go watch “Happy Valley” now, on Netflix, because it—especially in its second season—does precisely what “The Night Manager” doesn’t: it finds something original to say about evil. It’s another beautifully produced show, full of magnetic (if less model-pretty) faces. But it’s a keeper.

“Happy Valley” is the story of a grandmotherly cop, Catherine Cawood (Sarah Lancashire), whose daughter was raped, gave birth to a son, and then committed suicide. Cawood is raising her grandson, Ryan, with good intentions but also with an edge of rage and grief that colors their every interaction. In the first season, Ryan has a brutal run-in with Tommy Lee Royce, his biological father, a sequence so tense that it’s barely watchable. As the second season starts, Cawood hasn’t recovered from any of this, especially not her conflict with the now imprisoned Royce. People who haven’t seen “Happy Valley” may have heard that it is a show with a “strong female character,” a woman who excels at her job, like the dogged, honorable Burr, on “The Night Manager.” But Catherine Cawood doesn’t have a trace of phony empowerment: although she’s not precisely an antihero, she is a “bloody mess,” as she might put it, as damaged by her past as she is fuelled by it. She’s not a fantasy of resilience but a portrait of how limited that notion is, when it comes to actual suffering.

A series of terrible crimes occurs under Cawood’s nose. Her colleague murders a woman with whom he’d been having an affair, and who had been blackmailing him. A serial killer preys on prostitutes. A prostitute is raped by a client. In addition, Cawood’s sweet sister, Clare (Siobhan Finneran), a recovering addict, gets involved with a man who has his own troubled history. Most unsettling of all, a mouselike young woman, Frances Drummond (all black spectacles and whispers, in a brilliant performance by Shirley Henderson), becomes a teacher at the local school so that she can build a relationship with Ryan. She intends to bring him closer to his father, whom she’s been visiting in prison.

Each of these plots could easily become a cartoon: the serial killer could reveal a set of stylish kinks; we could watch the rape occur in graphic detail; Drummond could go full “Hand That Rocks the Cradle.” None of that happens. Instead, “Happy Valley” miraculously manages to treat the ugliest behavior imaginable with humane insight, while never letting the perpetrators off the hook. It views crime as an act of weakness, not power. The most frightening sequence in the show involves a seemingly kind act, a surprise birthday gift of an elaborate child’s toy, which devolves into a scene of family rancor so distressing that I had to cover my eyes, as if it were a murder.

In “The Night Manager,” Roper steadily delivers monologues about evil. Only children see the world as rational or meaningful, he argues. “Becoming a man is realizing that it’s all rotten—and realizing how to celebrate that rottenness. That’s freedom.” Le Carré’s world offers us a fantasy of an iconic brand of authority: the cool intellect that allows a strong person to experience the ultimate pleasure, which is total control. Only the shrewdest, most virtuous man in the world can undermine the worst one.

“Happy Valley,” which is set in an unglamorous West Yorkshire pocked with drugs and unemployment, thinks locally, not globally. It regards total control as the childish illusion. For a long time, that teacher seems like a familiar trope. She’s certainly sinister, with her saccharine voice and the clinging way that she interacts with Royce during their visits. (“Happy Valley” is often at its best when dramatizing pathological uses of femininity.) When Cawood goes to see her, late at night, we assume she wants vengeance. In another show, we’d get a kickass showdown.

Instead, the two talk, in a layered, rivetingly performed debate, one inflected by Cawood’s anxiety that Ryan might carry his father’s criminal nature inside him. Drummond argues, feverishly, that evil isn’t inborn. She insists that Royce, however damaged he was by an “awful” childhood, can become “good and kind and gentle and thoughtful— thoughtful . That’s what I see when I listen to him, when I look into his eyes.” Softly but straightforwardly, Cawood shreds her delusions, which are the result not of too little empathy but of too much. She also points out the obvious: if Royce weren’t a muscular, tattooed man with the face of an angel, no woman would defend him. “You’re jealous,” Drummond says, her face lit by what she believes must be true. Cawood smiles, her face hard and full of pity.

It’s a sequence that is world-weary in all senses—wise, complex, intractably sad—a debate about justice that can’t be resolved. But it has real sophistication, the kind that lingers. ♦

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By Anthony Lane

By Rebecca Mead

By John Cassidy

'The Night Manager' Season 2: Release Date, Cast and Spoilers

The BBC drama, starring Tom Hiddleston, has been missing from our screens for eight years

It's official: a second and third season are on the way. Tom Hiddleston will return to run around glamorous locales in dashing tailoring in his role as Jonathan Pine. The British actor has long been questioned about when his secret agent might return, as Loki aside, it has become one of his career-defining roles.

So while much of the show is as confidential as a message from Angela Burr, here’s everything we know so far:

When is The Night Manager series 2 released?

Filming on the production is due to start from summer 2024, so it’s safe to say it won’t be broadcast for a while. We say expect it mid-2025.

Is there a trailer for The Night Manager series 2 yet?

No, that’s still probably a long way off – we suggest a rewatch of series one to get you back up to speed of where we’re at.

Who is in the cast of The Night Manager series 2?

Obviously Tom Hiddleston is back as the suave Jonathan Pine, but his target, the wicked arms dealer Dickie Roper (Hugh Laurie) may not be. A not-so-spoiler almost a decade on: he was carted off by rivals at the end of series one, presumably to be killed. Laurie has been announced as exec producer on the series (alongside Hiddleston) but there's nothing on him acting in the series. Maybe they’re holding back casting news as a surprise for fans?

Happily, Olivia Colman will return as Angela Burr, the manager of a Foreign Office who tasked Jonathan with offing Roper. Also making a welcome comeback are Alistair Petrie as Sandy Langbourne, Douglas Hodge as Rex Mayhew, Michael Nardone as Frisky, and Noah Jupe as Daniel Roper.

Joining the whole shady business for the first time in series two are Diego Calva ( Babylon, Narcos: Mexico ) and Emmy Award-nominee Camila Morrone ( Daisy Jones & The Six ), alongside Indira Varma, Paul Chahidi and Hayley Squires.

There’s still no word if Elizabeth Debicki (as Jed) will be back, last seen sailing off in the distance to see her son in America.

What’s going to happen in The Night Manager series 2?

News on the plotlines are understandably scant, although Digital Spy reported that the new series will see Jonathan subsequently face up to a “new” and “deadlier” threat.

Hiddleston, talking back in 2018 on Zoe Ball’s Breakfast show, said that Pine was on his mind: “What’s Jonathan Pine doing? Where is he? He’s probably in a dark corner somewhere spying on someone. What shape or form might that take? I’m very curious to see what materialises, and that’s about as much as I can say.”

Previously, one of the writers, Charles Cumming, suggested that there would be a return for some of the original characters, but not all: “Some characters that the audience know and love will be returning, others will not. The locations will be sumptuous, the plot as thrilling and as thematically complex as a le Carré story should be.”

Series creator David Farr said: “John le Carré's work has long been an inspiration to me and working closely with him on Season 1 was an honour and a pleasure. I did not tread lightly into extending The Night Manager beyond the original book, but an idea came to me a couple of years ago which felt truthful to that unique world of dark corners and shady identities. No one marries the suspense of espionage with a deep exploration of the human soul quite like le Carré. I hope that in some way we can pay homage to his uneasy genius in this new exploration.”

Laura Martin is a freelance journalist  specializing in pop culture.

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Olivia Colman is back for Season 2 of “ The Night Manager ,” reprising her Emmy-nominated role as intelligence officer Angela Burr, Variety has learned. Also returning for the new edition: Alistair Petrie (“Sex Education,” “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story”) as Alexander “Sandy” Langbourne; Douglas Hodge (“Joker,” “Black Mirror”) as Rex Mayhew; Michael Nardone (“Traces,” “Rome”) as Frisky; and Noah Jupe (“A Quiet Place,” “Honey Boy”) as Danny Roper (who apparently now goes by “Daniel”).

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Story details are being kept under wraps — but the return of several cast members who were in the Season 1 orbit of villan Richard “Dicky” Roper (played by Hugh Laurie) gives hint that there is unfinished business there. That includes Jupe as Roper’s son Danny, whose life is saved early in Season 1 by Pine. Also, Nardone’s character “Frisky” was one of Roper’s henchmen, while Petrie’s Sandy played a key role in Roper’s arms dealing schemes.

Laurie is among the executive producers on Season 2 of “The Night Manager,” but so far there’s been so word on whether he’s returning. The series ended with a bit of a cliffhanger, as Roper and his team are arrested — but then the police van is taken over by arms buyers, angered by the collapse of their deal.

Series creator David Farr is also executive producing and writing the new season, which continues to be inspired by John le Carré’s novel “The Night Manager.” BAFTA-winning director Georgi Banks-Davies (“I Hate Suzie,” “Paper Girls”) is helming Season 2.

Season 1 of “The Night Manager” (which also aired on BBC One in the U.K. and on AMC in the U.S.) scored Golden Globes wins for Colman (best supporting actress), Hiddleston (best actor in a limited series or TV film) and Laurie (best supporting actor). It one of 2016’s most watched TV shows in the U.K., according to the BBC.

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The Night Manager Season 2 Brings Back Olivia Colman & More to Prime Video Series

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BBC and Amazon MGM Studios have announced that Oscar winner Olivia Colman ( The Favourite ) is officially coming back for The Night Manager Season 2, after eight years since the spy thriller series had wrapped up its 6-episode first season. Besides Colman, four more returning cast members have also been enlisted to appear in the next installment.

Per BBC , The Night Manager Season 1 stars Alistair Petrie ( Rogue One: A Star Wars Story ), Douglas Hodge ( Joker ), Michael Nardone ( Rome ), and Noah Jupe ( A Quiet Place ) have been tapped to reprise their respective roles as Sandy Langbourne, Rex Mayhew, Frisky and Daniel Roper in the forthcoming second season. Interestingly, three of these characters are connected to the first installment’s main antagonist, Richard Roper, portrayed by Hugh Laurie. The latter’s Season 2 return hasn’t been confirmed yet, but he is currently involved as an executive producer. Colman, Petrie, Hodge, Nardone, and Jupe will be joining returning lead star Tom Hiddleston, who will not only reprise his Golden Globe-winning role as Jonathan Pine but will also serve as an executive producer for the next two seasons of the Prime Video series .

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"Olivia Colman’s award-winning role as Angela Burr in the first series of The Night Manager was unforgettable, and we are over the moon that she is back alongside Tom Hiddleston," BBC Drama director Lindsay Salt said. "We have such a strong cast and with Alistair Petrie, Douglas Hodge, Michael Nardone and Noah Jupe also returning, and filming starting in London, the second series of The Night Manager promises to provide even more drama, glamour, intrigue and suspense."

In The Night Manager , Colman portrays Angela Burr, who was introduced as the manager of a Foreign Office task force dedicated to stopping arms dealer Richard Roper’s main operation. Her Season 1 performance secured Colman her first Golden Globe win for Best Supporting Actress – Series, Limited Series or Television Film. Last year, the acclaimed British actor appeared in three back-to-back shows, including BBC One’s Great Expectations , Marvel Studios’ Secret Invasion , and Hulu’s The Bear Season 2. She will next be seen in the long-awaited Paddington in Peru , as well as in the dark comedy movie The Roses with Benedict Cumberbatch and Kate McKinnon.

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The Night Manager Season 2 Welcomes New Cast Members

In addition to the returning cast, The Night Manager is also welcoming several new cast members to its Season 2 roster. Diego Calva ( Narcos: Mexico ), Camila Morrone ( Daisy Jones & The Six ), Indira Varma ( Obi-Wan Kenobi ), Paul Chahidi ( Wicked Little Letters ), and Hayley Squires ( Beau Is Afraid ) have also been enlisted to star opposite Hiddleston in the new season. Further details about their characters are still under wraps. Season 2 hails from writer-creator David Farr and director Georgi Banks-Davies, based on the characters featured in John le Carré’s best-selling novel of the same name. The cast and crew of the spy thriller are scheduled to start filming Season 2 sometime this month.

While waiting for the next season, fans can still watch or revisit The Night Manager Season 1 on Prime Video.

The Night Manager (2016)

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The night manager of a Cairo hotel is recruited to infiltrate an arms dealer's inner circle.

Source: BBC