Helpful Score: 2
Highly descriptive, tediously detailed, and sometimes dizzyingly disorienting. LeCarre is always interesting as his experiences in the intelligence world are fictionalized in his books. Your imagination will run wild with stereotypical spy stories trying to figure out the mystery as you read, like any good spy novel. For anyone who wants to understand how closely linked diplomatic work is to intelligence work, this is a great example, provided by someone who really knows. In the end, you get to see what the reality of diplomatic and intelligence work can be like; often gritty, saturated in humanity, and not nearly as orderly and policy oriented as one might think.
