Five years ago I wrote a post about an early novel by John le Carré: A Murder Of Quality.
It is a detective story, not his usual genre, but features George Smiley. Mistakenly I thought it was his first book and the first appearance by George Smiley. A M of Q was published in 1962. The year before, he wrote Call for the Dead. It provides George Smiley’s back story, has a gripping plot and is as well written as his subsequent books. It also is seasoned with the moral ambiguity that became such a beguiling feature of all his work.
”Intelligent, thrilling, surprising . . . Makes most cloak-and-dagger stuff taste of cardboard.” (Sunday Telegraph)
Don’t save it for a long haul flight as you will have finished before you are over the Alps. I read it in an evening; like today’s post, it is short.