I’m relatively new to this John Le Carre journey so it’s a bit odd to be reading this, his last book, at this point. However, the title just called out to me. The book was basically finished before the author died, and it was polished by his son before release. I thought the writing was incredible and the characters are so well drawn… but I’m not sure I understood the point of it. What was the story, what was the plot? Review suggest it was showing the author’s disillusionment with the security services but, I don’t know, I think I just missed it all. It’s short though, so nice to just revel amongst these odd characters for a while.

I read that John Le Carré wrote the Smiley character as a direct response to Bond, making him chubby and kinda boring, and one that goes through the motions to get the job done, rather than getting the drinks and the girls and the rock and roll side of things. Despite that, it’s still a really good espionage thriller - a suicide that was actually a murder, several attacks on our hero, plus quite a lot of time spent at the theatre. I really quite liked it. Although I think I do like Bond better, I’ll be interested to read more of this Smiley chap.