Friday Reads: The Honourable Schoolboy

We're back to Friday Reads for fall! Our Cataloging & Acquisitions Librarian, Adam Pellman, is reading The Honorable Schoolboy by John Le Carré, and says "Sorry for the serious look on my face in the picture, but I'm reading a spy novel, and espionage is no laughing matter."

Adam Pellman with The Honorable Schoolboy

"The Honourable Schoolboy is a spy novel, written by the great British spy novelist John Le Carré, who worked in the British intelligence service before becoming a best-selling writer. His books reveal a real knowledge of the inner workings of the intelligence trade, and focus more on the bureaucracy and day-to-day fieldwork of spycraft, rather than the action-packed, globetrotting adventures of many other spy novels. You can think of Le Carré's works almost as the anti-Mission Impossible, but they are just as thrilling in their own way. His novels have an intelligence and complexity that requires close attention, but they are usually riveting, and they always excel at showing the ways in which matters of global importance can hinge on the very personal vagaries of the human heart.

This is the second novel in a trilogy, and follows members of the British Secret Service who are still reeling from the betrayal of a Soviet double agent in the previous novel in the trilogy, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. The hero of that novel, George Smiley, is back in charge of the service, and has sent sometime agent and news reporter Jerry Westerby to Hong Kong to ferret out a possible Soviet spy and defector. There, under pressure from Smiley, Westerby becomes embroiled in blackmail, murder, and a complicated attraction that may jeopardize the operation.

I'm looking forward to finishing this novel, and moving on later to read the third novel in the trilogy, Smiley's People."