Earlier this year John Le Carré’s son Nick published his debut novel to considerable acclaim (The Gone-Away World) - and I’ve got the theory that Dad wasn’t going to let himself be outdone in 2008! For, with A Most Wanted Man, Le Carré delivers one of his most consummate-ever performances, a novel that will delight those who savoured the early Cold War novels (like The Spy who Came in from the Cold) while also being (as ever) a trenchant diagnostic of the West’s wilful ineptitude – this time in response to the post-9/11 world and the spectre of terrorism.

We are in Hamburg (such a clever choice – that still-sparkling jewel of mercantile capitalism, although better known now for its tawdry connection to one of the most lethal terrorist cells the world has ever known) and in Tommy Brue’s world of merchant banking, all is as it should be. Mind you, the wife isn’t doing much to hide her liaisons, and life is certainly lacking a little frisson ... Until he takes a call from a young human-rights lawyer, Annabel Richter, whose client, an asylum-seeker of indeterminate, possibly Chechen, origins, has turned up at the Hamburg railway station. One of his only possessions is the name and address of Tommy’s bank, and what appears to be a code number. Tommy is in no position to demur – his bank, under his father’s direction at that time, and much to his present regret, had made a fortune providing its services to high-ranking Russian colonels as they seized assets and built up vast fortunes during the break-up of the Soviet Union, and if there is a claim on these funds Tommy has no choice but to accede.

Our young man, Issa, is presumably seeking his inheritance from his father – but he is not all that he appears, and the money is not his primary object. A re-energised Tommy makes a pact with Annabel to come to his aid ... But meanwhile, the Western intelligence services are falling over themselves to get their hands on this obviously (Middle-Eastern appearance and all that! ) ‘most wanted man’.

Booksellers I know who’ve read this book all get that far-away look when they talk about A Most Wanted Man – it simply purrs with magnificent characters, an intriguing plotline and the writing skills of a man who is quite simply the best in his genre. The pleasure’s all yours now: make yourself comfy and enjoy this literary highlight of 2008!