I have yet to read Graham Greene’s famous spy satire Our Man in Havana, but I’m familiar with the premise and am well aware that John Le Carré is aping it here. He’s having a blast splattering colored paint on the immaculately white walls of British imperialism. Until he remembers that these characters have stories, hearts and lives too.

That’s what makes The Tailor of Panama so fascinating. Transparently a satire of western intelligence work, Le Carré also paints vivid portraits of characters whose lives are impacted by their failed pursuits at advancement in western culture. There’s Harry Pendel, the half-Scottish half-Jewish secretly reformed criminal making his living off of fiction and money from debts that are about to be called in. There’s his wife Louisa, the lesser sister who acts like her neurotic parents and is saved only by fierce devotions to husband, country and God. There’s Andy Osnard, cynically bitter of how Britain’s changes led to the decline of his minor noble family, so he seeks an institution to ruin and finds it in espionage. There’s Mickie Abraxas, a spoiled rich secret revolutionary whose desire to do the right thing always puts him on the wrong side.

And then there’s Panama herself, a destitute Central American country ruined by American and European imperialism, which would otherwise be ignored by the rest of the world if not for its narrow strip of land that provided for an economic connection between east and west. Even with the Canal losing its relevance, it’s quite clear that the Americans and Japanese want to hold onto it for…well because they can’t imagine doing so otherwise. And the British of course hate standing on the sidelines. So…

There are parts of this book where the story drags, where Le Carré goes a little too long on his characters inner monologues. Nevertheless, this is a rollicking read, one of his more accessible books. You may laugh, you may cry, but the point will still be made.