The opening of John Le Carré’s novel introduces us to Sandy Woodrow, one of the best drawn characters I’ve ever read, an old Etonian working as Head of Chancery in the High Commission in Nairobi. Le Carré has this masterful way of seeming to write in third person and first person simultaneously, enriching our experience of Woodrow by truly getting ‘inside his head’ and writing that deeply personal perspective. We almost believe that Woodrow is our main protagonist for the first few chapters of the book.

But the gentle and unheroic protagonist is Justin Quayle who, after the murder of his wife, digs doggedly and courageously to discover the truth about her death, and finds it.

The novel is a tale about the dark side of unrestrained capitalism, and the main reason I have chosen it to share with you (apart from my love of Le Carré’s writing) is that much inspiration for Fly Catcher was drawn from this work. The Constant Gardener is believed to have derived its message from a number of real life trials conducted by pharmaceutical companies in Africa, including testing on small children.

It sounds like a heavy read, but I didn’t find it so. Le Carré’s characters come alive on the page and are often sympathetic and humorous – especially the gregarious Gloria Woodrow – and it teaches us so much about the crimes huge corporations routinely get away with.