EPUB, 2012 reprint with new introduction
English language
Published Oct. 2, 2012
“Fielding and Jebedee were dead, Steed-Asprey vanished. Smiley—where was he?”
John le Carré’s second novel, A Murder of Quality, offers an exquisite, satirical look at an elite private school as it chronicles the early development of George Smiley.
Miss Ailsa Brimley is in a quandary. She’s received a peculiar letter from Mrs. Stella Rode, saying that she fears her husband—an assistant master at Carne School—is trying to kill her. Reluctant to go to the police, Miss Brimley calls upon her old wartime colleague, George Smiley. Unfortunately, it’s too late. Mrs. Rode has just been murdered. As Smiley takes up the investigation, he realizes that in life—as in espionage—nothing is quite what it appears.
A fun George Smiley story; a classic whodunnit, not a spy story. Great writing with great characters; skewering Great British snobbery at a second rate public school. There are a couple of really nice changes of direction towards the end. I thought the mechanics of the murder plot were stretched a little thin though.
