Saturday, 28 July 2007

The antiquities collection of 'the worst man in the world'

When Jonathan Pine enters Crystal, the home of Roper ('the worst man in the world'), he passes through a gallery.
Greek torsos, marble heads, hands, urns and stone panels of hieroglyphics stood or lay about in disarray. Brass-bound glass cabinets ran along the walls crammed with figurines. Hand-printed signs declared their provenance: West African, Peruvian, pre-Columbian, Cambodian, Minoan, Russian, Roman, and in one case simply "Nile".
Richard Onslow Roper, trader of arms, shipper of drugs, is based in Nassau, the Bahamas. And he collects antiquities.

Arms, drugs, antiquities come together.

But this is fiction.

Pine is the eponymous Night Manager created by John Le Carre (chapter 16).

The real world is so different ... isn't it?

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