IT’S ABOUT CRIME
by Marvin Lachman

PETER WOLFE John Le Carre

PETER WOLFE РCorridors of Deceit: The World of John Le Carr̩. Popular Press, hardcover/trade paperback, 1987.

— Reprinted from The MYSTERY FANcier,
       Vol. 10, No. 2, Spring 1988.

   Peter Wolfe’s Corridors of Deceit is a subtle analysis of the man who brought realism (and, for me, boredom) to the spy story. I clearly am in the minority, as the Best-Seller charts show.

   Fans of Le Carré will find this book satisfying because Wolfe is a perceptive writer, as he showed several years ago in his analysis of the works of Hammett, Beams Falling. His may well be the definitive book on the most popular serious spy novelist of our time.

Editorial Comment:   This is the fifth in a series of reviews in which Marv covered reference works published in 1987, books about the field of mystery and crime fiction. Preceding this one was Campion’s Career, by B. A. Pike. You can find it here.