****Excellent***Good**Fair*Poor : Audiocassettes

“A Perfect Spy” by John le Carre. Read by Frank Muller. Recorded Books (unabridged on 12 cassettes). Le Carre’s own reading of his dissection of the soul of a double-dealing spy seemed matchless. But it is an abridgement on four cassettes, offering only a third of the immensely detailed and richly charactered book. Muller’s reading is so close to Le Carre’s in subtlety, variety and interest that only the length differentiates them. Muller is the introspective Magnus Pym, his florid con-man father Rick and Pym’s rough-cut British spy boss, Jack Brotherhood. He’s Pym’s Czech control Poppy and a whole company of others, male, female, American, British, European. It is a majestic performance and, as with all great and impeccably paced readings, the complex architecture of the book, with its back-and-forth leaps in time and place and viewpoint, emerges with fine clarity. Philip Roth once called “A Perfect Spy” “the best English novel since the war.” Listening to Muller, it’s easy to agree. Information: (800) 638-1304. ****