No one wears a tuxedo in le Carre's spy novels. His agents are middle-aged, disappointed, disillusioned men in stained overcoats. In The Spy Who Came In from the Cold a worn-out English spy named Alec Leamas undertakes a terrifying mission in the hope that it will be his last: He pretends to defect to East Germany, the better to infiltrate the enemy's espionage network.
Like anything newsworthy, miracles of medicine and technology inevitably make their way out of the headlines and become the stuff of fiction. In recent years readers have been absorbed by media accounts of a transplanted hand, an experiment that ultimately ended in amputation. Medical ethicists reason that a hand, unlike a heart or a liver--essential organs conveniently housed out of sight--is in full view and one of a pair, arguably dispensable. In his 10th novel, however, John Irving undertakes to imagine just such a transplant, which involves a donor, a recipient, a surgeon, a particular Green Bay Packer fan, and the remarkable left hand that brings them together.
It is 1784, and His Majesty's frigate "Undine" sets sail from Spithead for India. Europe may be at peace, but in colonial waters the promises of statesmen count for little and the bloody struggle for supremacy goes on. Richard Bolitho undertakes a task that would be better handled by a squadron.
