146 pages
English language
Published Jan. 3, 2002
A Murder of Quality is the second novel by John le Carré, published in 1962. It features George Smiley, the most famous of le Carré's recurring characters, in his only book set outside the espionage community.
This is the second George Smiley book, and it has nothing to do with espionage. It's a murder mystery set in an English public school.
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.
I flipped through this in just over an hour and a half, primarily because although it's worth reading, it doesn't really conform to a typical genre work inasmuch as it's basically a murder mystery. There are hints of Smiley's personality, and I like the way schoolboys play parts in later novels (Tinker Tailor, for instance). But even with all the invective propellant aimed toward Smiley because of Ann, it still wasn't really a spy novel and so only holds interest for me through its historical value.
