Le Carre’s smooth, erudite style almost pulls ““Single’’ up to the level of his cold-war thrillers. He begins with a terrifying execution on a Turkish hillside, throws in a low-rent magician on the Devon coast in chapter two and links them–plausibly–in chapter three. He writes subtly delicious sentences: ““Lanxon gardened at his pipe, gouging sodden tobacco onto an ashtray.’’ But swell writing doesn’t carry a spy novel. Too many characters are straight from central casting, ’90s edition. Too much of the action–especially the ““Mission: Impossible’’ climax–borders on preposterous. We prefer Le Carre’s old stuff, before KGB HQ was rented out to a Laundromat.
