When Oliver learns that one of his former colleagues has had his head blown off, he emerges to rescue his father from the same fate. To do this he becomes, in essence, a spy. The spy who came back to the bank. That is how le Carré very neatly gets around the whole problem of his banking thriller: he turns it into a spy thriller. Once this trick is turned he is back on his old turf and into his favorite themes: deception and suspicion and loyalty and betrayal. All of these he handles with his usual spark and originality. The moral center of the story is a young man who betrays his father in order to save him. In le Carré's hands betrayal becomes a form of loyalty. It is a rich idea, which le Carré writes richly. But try getting it across in a real bank!

Genauer betrachtet ist le Carrés Thriller zwar spannend, aber letztlich kein Thriller. Es ist vielmehr der Entwicklungsroman eines jungen Mannes in einer Wohlstandswelt, die an ihre eigenen Werte nicht mehr glaubt.

Le Carre exposes the dark side of international finance when the founder of a major investment house disappears, and his estranged son hunts global criminals to Zurich, Tbilisi, and Instanbul.