The Night Manager
Encyclopedia
The Night Manager is an espionage/detective novel by John le Carré
, published in 1993. It is his first post-Cold War
novel, detailing an undercover operation to nab an international criminal.
for a luxurious hotel. One night, Pine encounters Sophie, a French-Arab woman who has ties to Richard Onslow Roper, an English black marketeer who has made a fortune from the sale of weapons. Sophie provides Pine with incriminating documents, which Pine forwards to a friend in British intelligence. Despite Pine's best efforts to help her, Sophie's betrayal is discovered and she is subsequently murdered. Six months later, Pine is approached by intelligence operatives Leonard Burr and Rex Goodhew, who are planning a carefully detailed sting operation
against Roper. Eager to avenge Sophie, Pine agrees to go undercover to infiltrate Roper's vast criminal empire, but the operation is jeopardized by an inter-agency turf war within the intelligence community.
As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Pine has won the confidence of Roper, through an adroit tactic in which Pine saves his child. Pine is assigned a position within the Roper organization, to act as the head of a special purpose entity - a device sometimes employed by modern corporations. As the head of the company, Pine is tasked with the assignment of executing a large transaction in which shipping containers full of Colombian (happy children juggling on the label) "coffee" is exchanged for arms. The drugs are piled high, and packed into their respective containers - and Pine signs for them. Meanwhile, operation 'Flagship' accomplishes a betrayal of Pine's identity by a group of questionable individuals in the employ of the Intelligence agencies. Seeing Pine discredited, and in full knowledge of the danger to his life - Burr executes a daring tactic to save him, at a cost of scale to the sting operation.
The novel ends with Pine alive, having survived being badly tortured. He is leaving Roper's ship "The Iron Pasha" in a launch, and he voices to himself the feeling that he has somehow lost and Roper won. He wonders if Roper, men and corporations like him - will not leave this earth until they have scarred it so badly that the destruction they have wrought by their action - burns the whole world and them along with it.
John le Carré
David John Moore Cornwell , who writes under the name John le Carré, is an author of espionage novels. During the 1950s and the 1960s, Cornwell worked for MI5 and MI6, and began writing novels under the pseudonym "John le Carré"...
, published in 1993. It is his first post-Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
novel, detailing an undercover operation to nab an international criminal.
Plot summary
The novel follows Jonathan Pine, a former British soldier turned night auditorNight auditor
A night auditor is a person who works at night at the reception of a hotel. They typically handle both the duties of the front desk agent and some of the duties of the accounting department...
for a luxurious hotel. One night, Pine encounters Sophie, a French-Arab woman who has ties to Richard Onslow Roper, an English black marketeer who has made a fortune from the sale of weapons. Sophie provides Pine with incriminating documents, which Pine forwards to a friend in British intelligence. Despite Pine's best efforts to help her, Sophie's betrayal is discovered and she is subsequently murdered. Six months later, Pine is approached by intelligence operatives Leonard Burr and Rex Goodhew, who are planning a carefully detailed sting operation
Sting operation
In law enforcement, a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person committing a crime. A typical sting will have a law-enforcement officer or cooperative member of the public play a role as criminal partner or potential victim and go along with a suspect's actions to gather...
against Roper. Eager to avenge Sophie, Pine agrees to go undercover to infiltrate Roper's vast criminal empire, but the operation is jeopardized by an inter-agency turf war within the intelligence community.
As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Pine has won the confidence of Roper, through an adroit tactic in which Pine saves his child. Pine is assigned a position within the Roper organization, to act as the head of a special purpose entity - a device sometimes employed by modern corporations. As the head of the company, Pine is tasked with the assignment of executing a large transaction in which shipping containers full of Colombian (happy children juggling on the label) "coffee" is exchanged for arms. The drugs are piled high, and packed into their respective containers - and Pine signs for them. Meanwhile, operation 'Flagship' accomplishes a betrayal of Pine's identity by a group of questionable individuals in the employ of the Intelligence agencies. Seeing Pine discredited, and in full knowledge of the danger to his life - Burr executes a daring tactic to save him, at a cost of scale to the sting operation.
The novel ends with Pine alive, having survived being badly tortured. He is leaving Roper's ship "The Iron Pasha" in a launch, and he voices to himself the feeling that he has somehow lost and Roper won. He wonders if Roper, men and corporations like him - will not leave this earth until they have scarred it so badly that the destruction they have wrought by their action - burns the whole world and them along with it.