Our Kind of Traitor

<p><b>In John le Carr¿s electrifying novel <i>Our Kind of Traitor</i>, innocents abroad are drawn into the darkest recesses of the financial world.<br></b><br>Britain is in the depths of recession. A left-leaning young Oxford academic and his barrister girlfriend take an off-peak holiday on the Caribbean island of Antigua. By seeming chance they bump into a Russian millionaire called Dima who owns a peninsula and a diamond-encrusted gold watch. He also has a tattoo on his right thumb, and wants a game of tennis.<br><br>What else he wants propels the young lovers on a tortuous journey through Paris to a safe house in the Swiss Alps, to the murkiest cloisters of the City of London and its unholy alliance with Britain''s Intelligence Establishment.<br><br><b>''If you want to know about the state of Britain today, forget the Booker shortlist. Just read John le Carr¿s latest thriller'' <i>Evening Standard</i><br><br>''Few recent plays have had dialogue as good, and few recent literary novel