Single & Single
First edition (UK)
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| Author | John le Carré |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Crime fiction, Mystery novel |
| Publisher |
Hodder & Stoughton (UK) Scribner (US) |
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Publication date
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1999 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) also Audiobook |
| Pages | 352 |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 44694435 |
| Preceded by | The Tailor of Panama |
| Followed by | The Constant Gardener |
Single & Single is a novel by John le Carré about a British Customs and Excise officer named Brock on the trail of elusive fraudster Tiger Single. Helped by Tiger's son Oliver, Brock unravels the mystery of an international money-laundering operation.
Like many of Le Carré's novels, the narrative begins in the in medias res style, midway through the events which have precipitated the opening scene.
In southern Turkey, a corporate lawyer with the London finance house Single & Single, Alfred Winser, is executed in cold blood by Alix Hoban, his firm's leading client, for reasons he cannot comprehend.
In Devon, England, Oliver Hawthorne is a down-at-heel children's magician lodging in a small hotel owned by Elsie and her son Sammy. After finishing his latest performance, he receives an urgent call from his banker, Arthur Toogood, who accompanies him to a bank audit, where he learns an anonymous benefactor has deposited £5,000,030 into a trust Oliver created for his infant daughter, Carmen. Oliver claims ignorance but later tells Elsie he must travel to London for a few days.
The narrative shifts to the early 1990s, when Oliver - in reality Oliver Single - joins his father "Tiger" Single's firm just after graduating from law school. After the warming of relations with the Soviet Union, several Western businesses are eager to explore business opportunities in the "new" Russia, and Tiger has secured a meeting with two Russian brothers, the Orlovs, renowned as Moscow's "premier power brokers." Yevgeny Orlov and his right-hand man, Alix Hoban, discuss ventures with Tiger to restructure and exploit Soviet resources in scrap iron, oil, and - most lucrative of all - surplus disaster relief blood.
Though he has some misgivings, Oliver is enough in awe of his father to throw himself into facilitating the various deals, including traveling to Moscow, where he meets Yevgeny's daughter Zoya, whom Hoban is married to. Hoban has no regard for his wife, and she and Oliver soon become lovers.
All of Single & Single's plans collapse with the Soviet coup attempt of 1991: overnight, the Soviet Union collapses, and the Orlovs' power and vaunted connections are reduced to nothing. Tiger is undeterred, and sends Oliver out on various business errands that increase his misgivings. Before long, Single & Single and the Orlovs appear to be prosperous again. After receiving cryptic hints from Zoya, Oliver raids his father's safe during the office Christmas party, and a look through his records is enough to confirm Oliver's worst fears: the Orlovs have rebuilt their power structure as an organized crime syndicate, and his father's finance house is a money laundering service.
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