
I am an unashamed Le Carre fan. I think novels like The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy are pretty much as good as the espionage genre gets (or at least has got thus far). (I should disclose upfront that I’m not a fan of Ian Fleming, so feel free to form an opinion about that.) However, my heart belongs to Le Carre’s greatest character, George Smiley, so I may not have read this particular novel if it wasn’t for the BBC adaptation starring Tom Hiddleston and Hugh Laurie (to say nothing of the glorious Olivia Colman).