In the course of this malevolent assault on the reputation and character of Anthony Burgess, the writer describes him as a charlatan, a puritan, "a bloody fool", "a lazy sod", and a fake. "Shifty", "shitty", boasting, "berserk" . . . the charges roll on. We are in a morals court, but the case for the prosecution is conducted with a violence variously suggesting a pub brawl, an auto-da-fe, and a [...]

Far from being silenced by the end of the cold war between Smiley's Circus and Moscow Centre, John le Carre has never run short of new villains to go after or new wars to fight since 1989. Single & Single is 17th in the line stretching from Call for the Dead (1961) to The Tailor of Panama (1996), and while I don't think it's one of his best, it contains [...]