Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

This taut and subtle adaptation effectively presents le Carré's classic spy novel as a three-hour drama for voices--no mean feat of compression and interpretation. The acting, too, is superb, as are the production values. Simon Russell Beale gives us a stoic, admirable, and touching George Smiley, surely ironically named, who is underemployed, and lonely for his unfaithful wife. He is called out of retirement to investigate whether the secret service he had given his life to is corrupted by a Russian mole at the highest level of power. Smiley is spared nothing in the unraveling of this tale of multiple betrayals, but the listener is richly rewarded by a dazzling cast and so enjoyable a performance that this reviewer found two back-to-back listens were barely enough. B.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award (c) AudioFile 2010, Portland, Maine

The Cold War, perhaps dead in reality, lives on vibrantly in Michael Jayston's reading of a literary spy classic. This installment of the le Carré canon has George Smiley trying to uncover a Soviet mole in the British Secret Service. Jayston's rich, full-bodied voice recreates the paranoia, urgency, and dread implicit in any Soviet threat. He reads with a steady pace and allows the story to unfold naturally, with all the twists and turns subtly revealed. Jayston, a British actor, gives each character a distinct voice, and his inflections uncover their motivations and foibles. He even pauses well. The result is an intelligent book read with respect for the reader's intelligence. R.I.G. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine