About the Book

Tessa Quayle has been horribly murdered on the shores of Lake Turkana in Northern Kenya, the birthplace of mankind. Her putative African lover, a doctor with one of the aid agencies, has disappeared.

Her husband, Justin, a career diplomat and amateur gardener at the British High Commission in Nairobi, sets out on a personal odyssey in pursuit of the killers and their motive. His quest takes him to the Foreign Office in London, across Europe and Canada and back to Africa, to the depths of South Sudan, and finally to the very spot where Tessa died.

On his way Justin meets terror, violence, laughter, conspiracy and knowledge. But his greatest discovery is the woman he barely had time to love.

 

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On 27 September 2018, Penguin completed its nine-year project to publish twenty-one of John Le Carré’s novels as Penguin Modern Classics, making him the living author with the greatest number of works awarded this classics status. The last book to be published as part of this project is The Little Drummer Girl, which is also soon to be shown in a brand new BBC TV adaptation! To celebrate this wonderful project I’m delighted to be part of the blog tour to showcase this series of books. Today I’m reviewing The Constant Gardener and am also going to be running a giveaway where one lucky reader will win a brand new copy of this novel!

 

My Thoughts 

The Constant Gardener is one of those novels that I’ve known about, and wanted to read for such a long time so I’m delighted to have had the chance to read it for this blog tour. I’m kicking myself for not reading it sooner though because I loved it; I devoured it and have been thinking about it ever since I finished reading it.

The Constant Gardener is a novel about the murder of Tessa Quayle and her companion, and the quest to discover what exactly happened to them and how it came to happen. As her husband Justin delves further into the story we find that it’s all linked to terribly unethical pharmaceutical companies and what they’re doing in Africa. It is dark and twisted, and so engrossing that you just can’t stop reading.

This is a novel that keeps the reader on their toes; it’s twisty and you find that you’re not always sure who you can trust. I kept thinking I had it all worked out and then there would be another strand of the story that got woven in and I was suddenly unsure again. It’s like a giant puzzle where the pieces gradually start fitting together and you being to see the whole picture. At times I felt like I was so caught up in the story that I was there with Justin in the heat and feeling his confusion and his thought processes as he strove to discover the truth of what had happened to his wife.

I was expecting this novel to be thrilling (and it most definitely was), I was also expecting it become a tangled web (and it did) but I wasn’t expecting it to bring up so many emotions in me as I was reading. I really came to care about Tessa and wanted to know what had happened to her, and even though we know from the start that she is dead I still wanted a different outcome for her as we learn more and more about her in the flashbacks and through things left behind. It definitely left me with the feeling that we don’t always know as much as we think we do about the people we love but that doesn’t necessarily make them, or us, a bad person.

I’ll be honest and say that while I’ve wanted to read this book for a long time, it’s been the main le Carre book that appealed to me. I think it’s partly because novels about espionage haven’t really jumped out at me before. However, after reading The Constant Gardener and absolutely loving his writing style I definitely have the le Carre bug and want to read all of his work. I have a copy of The Little Drummer Girl here and plan on reading that before the new adaptation hits the screen, and then I think I’ll go back to the beginning and read my way through all of le Carre’s work!

The Constant Gardener is gripping, stunningly written and will have you engrossed from start to finish (and beyond)!

I received a copy of The Constant Gardener from the publisher. All thoughts are my own.

 

About the Author

John le Carré was born in 1931 and attended the universities of Bern and Oxford. He taught at Eton and served briefly in British Intelligence during the Cold War. For more than fifty years he has lived by his pen. He divides his time between London and Cornwall.

 

 

Giveaway!

 

This gorgeous new paperback edition of The Constant Gardener by Penguin Modern Classics is out now and can be ordered here. Penguin Modern Classics have very kindly given me an extra copy of the novel to be given away to one of you so if you’d like the chance to win, please enter by leaving a comment below telling me why you’d like to read the book.

Terms and Conditions

The giveaway is open in the UK only and will close on 15th October at 23.59 (UK time). I will put all the entrants’ names in a hat and ask my husband to randomly pick a winner. I will contact the winner after the giveaway has ended and must receive a reply back within one week or I reserve the right to pick another winner. Any personal data given as part of the competition entry is used for this purpose only and will not be shared with third parties. After the book is sent to the winner I will delete the data I hold. I’m not responsible for any loss or delay of the prize within the postal system.

 

 

You can find the rest of the stops on this tour at the following blogs: