ABSOLUTE FRIENDS is a superbly paced novel spanning fifty-six years a theatrical masterstroke of tragi-comic writing & a savage fable of our times almost of our hours. The friends of the title are Ted Mundy British soldier's son born 1947 in a shining new independent Pakistan & Sasha refugee son of an East German Lutheran pastor & his wife who have sought sanctuary in the West. The two men meet first as students in riot-torn West Berlin of the late Sixties again in the grimy looking-glass of Cold War espionage & most terribly in today's unipolar world of terror counter-terror & the war of lies. Deriving its scale from A PERFECT SPY & its passion from THE CONSTANT GARDENER le Carr?'s new novel presents us with magical writing characters to delight & a spellbinding story that enchants even as it challenges.