The Night Manager

What Hacker News says

1. ahartmetzDec 2022
   Yes, it's the best spy series together with the two BBC le Carré series.

   Le bureau des légendes is also similar to these three and just slightly worse IMO, and that mostly because of the weaker final season and an accumulation of implausibilities roughly starting in the middle (more series have that than not, sigh). But, for the most part, flawless acting.

   The Night Manager is cool, too, with a very satisfying ending.

   The Little Drummer Girl is also good, though there is some... uncommon? psychological stuff going on in the book that creaks even more in the series.

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2. at_a_removeDec 2020
   I read my first of his, The Night Manager, almost by accident and was immediately struck with the precision of his thoughts and his ability to convey them. I had never touched anything in the spy genre, aside from the requisite odd Ian Fleming, and thought "damn, this guy really knows his stuff," although I haven't the background to actually know.
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3. spudlyoJun 2025
   Thanks for the tip! I love well narrated audiobooks, and I've been meaning to get into one of le Carré's books for a while. I see he narrates the "John le Carré Value Collection" on Audible which has Tailor of Panama, Our Game, and Night Manager for a single credit. Is that what you're referring to?

   Along those lines, there is a great 2007 unabridged audiobook[0] of Frank Herbert's Dune that is read by Simon Vance for narration, but other characters are dramatically performed by other voice actors. It's excellent, but sadly a tad bit uneven and inconsistent in production. It's like they got 3/4ths of the way through the project and some of the original voice actors couldn't complete the project and Vance had to pick up the slack. Regardless, it's still one of my favorite audiobooks.

   [0]: https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781427201447-dune

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4. matthewmcgDec 2021
   I like to follow a thematic thread with books and movies. Here are a few recent ones that might interest the HN crowd:

   * water issues/climate change in the Southwest:

     - *Chinatown* (film)
    
     - *The Water Knife* by Paolo Bacigalupi (sci-fi novel, described as "*Chinatown* meets *Mad Max*)
   
     - *The Cadillac Desert* by Marc Reisser (nonfiction, part of a plot element in *The Water Knife*
   
     - *Cadillac Desert* PBS documentary[1]
   

   * Dark espionage thrillers:

     - *The Night Manager* by John LeCarre (novel, honestly not one of his best)
   
     - *The Night Manager* (TV miniseries--much better than the book!)
   
     - *The Ghost Writer* by Robert Harris (novel)
   
     - *The Ghost Writer* (movie)
   
     - *An Officer and a Spy* by Robert Harris (excellent and extensively researched historical novel, based on the Dreyfus Affair in Paris circa 1900)
   
     - *J'Accuse (An Officer and a Spy)* (movie)
   
   

   [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkbebOhnCjA
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5. jumpgrumpyMar 2021
   The main protagonist in the Little Drummer 'girl'?

   Although I found her a bit irritating. Then there is the rather 'forgettable' main woman char in the Constant Gardener.

   I liked most of Carre's works (although there are some stinkers in his canon - the Night Manager was I though a terrible book - but apart from Connie and Wife Anne I can barely remember any decent female characters at all.

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6. devnulloverflowAug 2019
   But the Night Manager novel really is a story about a stylish British tough-guy who seduces various beautiful women in different countries as he works his way towards the bad guys.

   The only reason you can read it without it seeming Bondish is that Le Carre manages to make all that strangely bland, if not outright dull.

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