A Murder of Quality is John Le Carré’s second novel as well as the second (of seven) in which ex-spook George Smiley plays a role. When the wife of a tutor at a prestigious public school is murdered, a friend of Smiley’s asks him to look into the case. Smiley’s attention—and everyone else’s, including the reader’s—is focused on a suspect until the very end when the truth comes out. Le Carré describes A Murder of Quality as “a flawed thriller redeemed by ferocious and quite funny social comment” in the Introduction to this edition, and the book is that, although I wouldn’t say it is fully redeemed.

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Book Reviewed:
P.S. John Le Carré, A Murder of Quality: A George Smiley Novel (New York: Penguin, 2012; orig. 1962).

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