I watched the movie, The Constant Gardener, a couple of weeks ago and was inspired to read this book. I've heard people criticize this book for not being enough of a spy novel, but I personally enjoyed that it focused more on the characters than on the crazy cover-up. I can't really objectively review this novel because I loved the movie and the actors in it so much that this couldn't really be anything but a little disappointing. I will, however, say that the writing style was really interesting and had I not seen the movie first, I would have really, really liked this book. However, this is one of those stories where if you've seen the movie you don't need to really read the book. There is very little to be added by the book and it's almost like it's not worth 500 pages - there are no major plot changes and we get only a very little more insight into the main characters. But if you haven't seen the movie, I think this would be really good, though-provoking novel about pharmaceutical companies, Africa, and, most importantly, the loss of a loved one.