When he graduates he quickly works his way up the ladder and soon has clients among the merchant bankers who are dissecting Africa amongst themselves and need someone to translate delicate financial negotiations, the press for translating informants (one of those married him to take home to papa and shock, but she was bored by his desire to conform and soon bored of her novelty), and of course, finally, Her Majesty's Government started hiring him on a part-time basis to serve Queen and Country.

Needless to say it's through his affiliation with the latter people that Bruno finds himself whisked off to a mysterious island somewhere North to translate between three Congolese power brokers, an independent consortium of businessmen, and the self-proclaimed saviour of the Congo who will lift the people from poverty and liberate them from the tyranny of Rwanda and others who have raped and despoiled their country for ages.

At the conference table Bruno only speaks French, English, and Swahili. But during meal breaks and times out for a breath of air, he's down a flight of stairs into an electronic surveillance pit to eavesdrop in any of the dialects the delegates choose to talk in amongst themselves for privacy.

When he discovers it's all just a guise for the same old same old - revolt, bloodshed, people dying, and foreign nationals stripping the land of millions of dollars of natural resources - Bruno wants to do something, but is not sure what. He secrets on himself seven of what he considers the most incriminating tapes and some of his notes in the hopes that he can prevent the planned events.

Le Carré hasn't lost any of his abilities as storyteller as the years have progressed and his writing is still as crisp and clean as it always has been. His agents still talk in that strange polite manner that belies murderous intent, and make everything sound like words you'd hear exchanged in any civil servant's meeting. They could be arranging the shipment of twenty thousand pens or twenty thousand mortar rounds for all anybody can tell by the inflection of their voices.

It's this casualness and urbanity of their conversation that makes them so wantonly evil and greedy. These are the direct descendants of those who made the Empire the merciless place it was. Masters of pillaging with a pen stroke they cast a jaundiced eye over the remnants of colonial rule around the world and see how they best suck new blood from a stone.

Fifty years ago coltan was just a hunk of useless rock; now every cell phone in the world has to have some in it or it wouldn't function. Of course there are always the old favourites such as oil, gold, and diamonds, just to keep everyone happy. They can sit directly in front of the people they will be screwing out of millions of dollars and tell them what a positive thing they are doing for their country and not skip a beat as they congratulate them on their courage and foresight.