I think this may be my favourite non-Karla le Carre novel, a post-Cold War spy thriller that darkly marks the transition from old-school espionage to more modern Pure Intelligence, recounting a desperate, but carefully and meticulously planned operation to bring down a wealthy British arms dealer by a small joint British/US agency known as Enforcement, while a larger, more powerful and shadowy set of players with tentacles in all levels of government and finance across the globe run their own, parallel operation, and would very much prefer the smaller operation to bugger off actually, thank you very much.

Point man for Enforcement is Jonathan Pine, ex-soldier, now Night Manager at an exclusive Swiss Hotel. The arrival of the arms deal, Richard Roper, one snowy night sparks memories of an earlier incident in Egypt which ended with a bloody murder, and inspires Pine to offer his services to British Intelligence. He is thereby recruited, trained and transformed, then pointed at Roper, and fired.

Every sentence shines, every character burns, every twist and turn, whether it's Pine's sweaty, queasy infiltration of Roper's life and affairs, or the efforts of members of Enforcement in London and Miami to protect themselves and Jonathan from political and economic skullduggery and a brutal war between intelligence agencies, is described with a cool, tight grace and emotional restraint as the principals become gradually aware of the extent of their self-deception in thinking they could wrestle even the smallest of victories against corruption on such a scale.