{"id":8248,"date":"2010-09-21T06:00:34","date_gmt":"2010-09-21T12:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/?p=8248"},"modified":"2010-09-01T13:15:52","modified_gmt":"2010-09-01T19:15:52","slug":"armchair-traveler-back-in-the-u-s-s-r","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/armchair-traveler-back-in-the-u-s-s-r\/","title":{"rendered":"Armchair Traveler &#8211; Back in the U.S.S.R."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/search.prairiecat.info\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/PALS-unicorn|556197\" target=\"_blank\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-8352\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/Our-Game.jpg?resize=178%2C283&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"178\" height=\"283\" \/><\/a>AT has visited the former Soviet Union\u00a0before but feels it deserves another look &#8211;\u00a0the hidden nature of it&#8217;s government and society makes it the\u00a0\u00a0perfect \u00a0setting for countless spy novels. \u00a0John Le Carre, the master of the Cold War suspense novel, has\u00a0 real-life experience in espionage. He was\u00a0an officer in both MI5 and MI6 in the 50&#8217;s and &#8217;60&#8217;s, when he began writing fiction.<\/p>\n<p>One of my favorite le Carre novels \u00a0is <a href=\"http:\/\/search.prairiecat.info\/?itemid=|library\/marc\/PALS-unicorn|556197\" target=\"_blank\"><strong><em>Our Game<\/em><\/strong><\/a>, largely due to the friendship of the main chararcters and the English and Russian setting. The\u00a0finale takes place in Ingushetia,\u00a0 an unstable Russian subject next to Chechnya.\u00a0The book\u00a0starts out with a mystery; the Bath (England) Police are looking for Larry Pettifer\u00a0and come to the door of\u00a0his\u00a0friend , and former handler, Tim Cranmer.\u00a0 Tim is forced to re-enter the spy world to protect himself and to help his friend &#8211; if he can. It turns out that Larry is not just a brilliant University lecturer, but also involved in a quixotic attempt to aid the Ingush rebels.<\/p>\n<p>There is no one better than le Carre in depicting the moral complexity of this murky world, in which the name of the game is deceit and deception, and he\u00a0 shows how such a career is inseparable with your private life, even in retirement.<\/p>\n<p><strong><em><br \/>\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AT has visited the former Soviet Union\u00a0before but feels it deserves another look &#8211;\u00a0the hidden nature of it&#8217;s government and society makes it the\u00a0\u00a0perfect \u00a0setting for countless spy novels. \u00a0John Le Carre, the master of the Cold War suspense novel, has\u00a0 real-life experience in espionage. He was\u00a0an officer in both<a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/armchair-traveler-back-in-the-u-s-s-r\/\">[Read more]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,1,8],"tags":[1331,89,210],"class_list":["post-8248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-reference","category-staff-picks","tag-cold-war","tag-russia","tag-spies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXx-292","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8248"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8361,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8248\/revisions\/8361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/reference\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}