A Murder of Quality

A Murder of Quality, by John Le Carré
146 pages

To read this book after you've read some of Le Carré's later works, specifically the Karla trilogy or the Spy Who Came in from the Cold, is to feel as though you're in spinoff territory.  That's because in A Murder of Quality, Le Carre's most known and beloved recurring character - the grounded, unassuming and observant George Smiley - is not putting his wits towards some brilliant espionage action, or rooting out a mole in MI6, but spending a weekend looking into the murder of a woman at an insular England boy's school.  The result is not bad at all.  A Murder of Quality, Le Carré's second novel, is a decent, light read, but lacks the intensity and potent intrigue of later works.

Le Carré's prose is as clear, descriptive, and elegant as always.  He also does a wonderful job of fleshing out the full snobbery of the staff at Carne, the school in which the murder takes place.  He weaves together plot twists with a nascent intricacy that becomes a fully realized staple in later books, but in the end, I just didn't care as much about what happened here.  The book's saving grace is George Smiley. Those who've been introduced to him in one or other of Le Carré's novels have likely developed a fascination with him and how he goes about solving problems.  At times he's like a still, much less flamboyant version of Sherlock Holmes; he politely asks the questions, and shuffles about with what we speculate is an assumed diffidence, while working it all out behind his "owlish" spectacles.

It's a short read, so you won't regret the time spent, and it's a pretty decent book.  It's simply outshone by most other works of Le Carré.