devs03

I've already read this book once, but I am re-reading it. Of my miniature John le Carre obsession, which took place throughout Hilary term 07, this was the best that I read. It is the second in the Tinker, Tailor trilogy, and it completely tops the first and makes the third have an incredibly hard act to follow. By necessity of the protagonist's ascendancy to chief of the Circus (as the UK spy network is known in this universe), this one takes on the grandest scale, shifting around between London, Hong Kong, Italy, Vietnam, and various other sunny Cold War locales. There's a scene that takes place in Vietnam in which an American low-level commander asks to shake the hand of the British spy because, as he says, "Now we've joined the ranks of second-class empire losers."

2022-11-14 16:36