The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carre.

The visually striking TV adaption has just started on BBC1 but so far the series seems very faithful to the book, though the US stations are likely to omit some of the more risque elements, such as nudity, etc.

This is classic le Carre: brilliantly written, meticulously researched and a plot so realistically complex that we don't know who is the good guys or the bad guys - which is exactly what the writer intends.

Never talking down to the reader, le Carre gives you a warts and all portrait of both sides of the Middle East conflict and lets the reader make up their own mind.

Add to this a huge cast of complex characters (including a very believable female lead protagonist) and some seriously beautiful prose and you

have one of the best le Carre novels I've read so far and they've all been seriously impressive. A faultless suspense novel from probably our greatest living writer in any genre.

5/5