John le Carré's eighteenth novel opens with the shocking murder of Tessa Quayle, the alluring, unconventional young wife of career diplomat and dedicated gardener Justin Quayle, who is old enough to be her father. Tessa's body is discovered in remote northern Kenya, where she had been traveling with an African doctor and fellow activist, far from the post-colonial comforts of British Nairobi. Completely transformed by the loss, Justin undertakes an urgent, impassioned search for the truth about his wife's death, her life, and her work, which she had hidden from him. This quest uncovers grand-scale political corruption, pharmaceutical foul-play, greed, and immorality, and ends in an intimate, inevitable encounter with evil.

Havi Hoffman