A Most Wanted Man

John le Carre's heroes aren't heroic.  They're world-weary men and women for whom spying isn't exactly a game, but they realize they might not be on the side of right.  A Most Wanted Man makes everyone a pawn.  The young man who may be a terrorist sleeper or an aspiring medical student.  The family who take him in and may be an apolitical mother and son who wish to become naturalized German citizens or a religious fanatic and a budding terrorist.  The banker whose father laundered money smuggled out of the collapsing USSR for the young man's putative father.  The idealistic woman who works for a refugee agency and may be falling for her charge.  Le Carre portrays them all vividly, but they don't matter.  What matters is the trap they make for the most wanted man.  Whether by design or not, Le Carre's plot was secondary to the atmospheric vignettes he strung together, creating an interesting novel in which the espionage is more of a background than the primary reason for the book.