The Honourable School-Boy by John Le Carre'
The second in the Tinker-Tailer-Soldier-Spy series on the British Secret Service between 1948 and the mid seventies. Le Carre', actually David Cornwell, writes a masterful and detailed novel that has been called the finest spy thriller series ever.
Well, there are thrilling bits, but mostly this is a book that very realistically lays out the way things have happened, will happen, and could happen in major nation spying.
The technology takes a far back stage as the actors themselves do 99% of the work. And the actors are once more men like George Smiley and Peter Guillam. And the ever present Soviet mastermind, but never seen in this book, Karlos.
The scene is set in mostly Hong Kong, when it was still a crown colony, and London, with a splash of the CIA at Langley and the final days of the Vietnam war: Cambodia, Laos, etc.
The unexpected will happen. Smiley will be seen even by the end to still be an aging bureaucrat. But George never disappoints.
I give this read 5 stars *****
-Ken
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