Books: The Constant Gardener

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The murder of his idealist young wife Tessa prompts career diplomat Justin Quayle, a member of the British High Commission in Nairobi, to investigate the humanitarian causes that she lived--and may have died--for. Before long, the widower finds himself on the trail of a shadowy pharmaceutical multinational selling a questionable TB drug to Africans. No one plays this sort of cat-and-mouse game better than Le Carre, although this time good and evil are a tad too easy to tell apart.

--By Paul Gray