The Night Manager

The Night Manager is an espionage novel by British writer John le Carré, published in 1993. It is his first post-Cold War novel, detailing an undercover operation to bring down a major international arms dealer. Plot summary Jonathan Pine, a former British soldier trained at the Duke of York's Royal Military School, is a night manager at the Hotel Meister Palace in Zurich. Richard Onslow Roper, a billionaire trafficker in arms and drugs, arrives with his entourage during a snowstorm. Pine bears a grudge against Roper from an incident which occurred years prior, in Cairo, where Pine was working as the night manager at the luxurious Queen Nefertiti hotel. The owner of the Queen Nefertiti, Freddie Hamid, had ties to Roper. Hamid's mistress, Sophie, was a French-Arab woman who provided Pine with incriminating documents about Roper, asking him to forward them to the Egyptian authorities. Pine did so but disregarded her warning that Roper had ties to British intelligence. He forwarded copies to a friend with MI6, and a short time later, Sophie was murdered. Several years later, Pine is working in Switzerland. He is approached by ex-SIS Chief Leonard Burr and senior civil servant Rex Goodhew, who are planning an elaborate sting operation against Roper. Eager to avenge Sophie, Pine agrees to go undercover to infiltrate Roper's criminal empire. The operation is jeopardised by an inter-agency turf war within the intelligence community and possible collusion with Roper.