The great abolitionist speaker and author Harriet Ann Jacobs was born into slavery in 1813 in North Carolina. When her mother died, Harriet's mistress, Margaret Horniblow, cared for her and taught her to read, write, and sew, but when Horniblow died, she suffered the misery of cruel masters.
New spies with new loyalties, old spies with old ones; terror as the new mantra; decent people wanting to do good, but caught in the moral maze; all the sound, rational reasons for doing the inhuman thing; the recognition that we cannot safely love, or pity, and remain good "patriots" -- this is the fabric of John le Carré's fiercely compelling and current novel A Most Wanted Man. A half-starved young Russian man in a...