John le Carré: The Mission Song (USA 2006)

From the Publisher:
Hailed everywhere as a masterpiece of suspense, John le Carré's return to Africa is the story of Bruno Salvador (aka Salvo), the 25-year-old orphaned love child of an Irish missionary and a Congolese woman. Quickly rising to the top of his profession as an interpreter, Salvo is dispatched by British Intelligence to a top-secret meeting between Western financiers and East Congolese warlords, where he hears things not meant for his ears - and is forced to interpret matters never intended for his reawoken African conscience. By turns thriller, love story, and comic allegory of our times, THE MISSION SONG recounts Salvo's heroically naïve journey out of the dark of Western hypocrisy and into the heart of lightness.

John le Carré: The Mission Song. Little, Brown, & Co., ISBN: 0316016748 (September, 2006), 339 p., $26.99

John le Carré: The Mission Song (UK 2006)

From the Publisher:
Bruno Salvador, known to friends and enemies alike as Salvo, is the ever-innocent, twenty-nine-year-old orphaned love-child of a Catholic Irish missionary and a Congolese headman's daughter. Educated first at mission school in the East Congolese province of Kivu, and later at a discreet sanctuary for the secret sons of Rome, Salvo is inspired by his mentor Brother Michael to train as a professional interpreter in the minority African languages of which, almost from birth, he has been an obsessive collector.

Soon a rising star in his profession, he is courted by City corporations, hospitals, law courts, the Immigration services and - inevitably - the mushrooming overworld of British Intelligence. He is also courted - and won - by the all-white, Surrey-born Penelope, star reporter on one of our great national newspapers, whom with typical impulsiveness he promptly marries. Yet even as the story opens, a contrary and irresistible love is dawning in him.

Despatched to a no-name island in the North Sea to attend a top-secret meeting between Western financiers and East Congolese warlords, Salvo is obliged to interpret matters never intended for his re-awoken African conscience.

John le Carré: The Mission Song. Hodder & Stoughton, ISBN 034092196X (September, 2006), 339 p., £17.99