George Smiley is back!
This is the second George Smiley novel, and like its predecessor, Call for the Dead, it isnt the spy thriller that one associates with le Carre, but a mystery. Smiley, in semi-retirement, is called by a friend to investigate allegations made at a Dorset Public School. Its a brief work, just 146 pages, but its fun to see how le Carre weaves a web of lies, confusing facts, and red herrings in an excellent prelude to his more famous spy novels. The setting also gives him full reign to express his hatred for the Public School mentality and morality, which he was subjected to as a young man.
Taken from the book by John le Carre, George Smiley rallies to the aid of his former intelligence colleague, Ailsa Brimley, to investigate a mysterious letter from a junion master's wife at Carne School - a boy's school. When Smiley goes to Carne to investigate, he finds the junior master's wife brutually murdered with her husband as one of the suspects. Smiley begins to scratch at the surface of the closed knit society of Carne and soon begins to find that things are not as they seem. Secret societies, sexual abuse, and a mysterious boy, Timothy Perkins, who is either another suspect, witness, or victim.
