The Little Drummer Girl by John le Carré
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It’s a spy story! But also it’s about theater. And writing. And identity. Really, it’s about art. For the master Israeli spy, as for his nemesis the master Palestinian revolutionary, their craft is less violence than art. They’re constructing alternate versions of the world for their friends and enemies to live in; and the main character, a confused half-radical English actress, spends most of the book carrying those worlds around in her head, and the identities that go with them. She’ll frequently be four different people at once — and the whole mission will fail if she can’t actually be all four. If she pretends or fakes it, even for a moment, they’ll sniff her out instantly.
The downside is that it tends to drag a bit.
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