Book Bites: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

If you like 300 pages of a man in a grubby apartment reading documents, then boy do I have a book for you. 

John le Carre is renowned as the king of the spy novel. In George Smiley, he very intentionally created an anti-James Bond, a plodding, nose-to-the-grindstone spy who succeeds despite a complete lack of car chases and sexy damsels and gadgets galore. Tinker Tailor revels in quiet subtlety as Smiley untangles the delicious web of lies and half-truth to uncover a mole in the British spy service. The plotting is deliberate. Very deliberate. Again, this is anti-Bond. Whole chapters consist real, actual spy work: meticulous interrogations or reading reports. It can, at times, feel like eating dry toast. le Carre is a magician, though. Smiley feels like a version of TV's Colomobo, always with more knowledge than he lets on, trapping his victims only to say, "ah, but one more thing..." The setup and the prestige of Tinker Tailor are impeccable, those willing to ride a slow-paced plot will find satisfaction by the end.

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