Rating: 
Summary: Not just a spy thriller
Review: This book is a masterful novel, with deeply satisfying characterization, plot structure, and narrative. It is unpretentious and refreshingly free of gimmickry. I enjoyed it not as an action thriller -- I am fed up with those -- but as literature.Fans of Raymond Chandler may enjoy this -- Chandler comes to mind as another writer who found a "niche" in the detective genre, but who could create a satisfying literary experience that did not depend on the exotic setting.
Rating:
Summary: The best of Smiley's novels
Review: This is absolutely the best of Le Carre's novels starring
Seorge Smiley. Witty, deep, much more than just espionage
Rating:
Summary: Truly excellent
Review: This is not only the best by le Carre, it is also one of the best written, most entrancingly hypnotic books I've ever read. Yes, it's about spies (boring, boring?) and foreign lands (of which we know little - and care less?), and it's quite long and pretty difficult, but I think it's great literature. I've re-read it many times, over the last fifteen (?) years. My teenage son read it aloud to his girlfriend during a prolonged and poverty stricken stay in Mexico. They did have to re-start it a couple of times, but told me that it was ultimately worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Le Carré can't be beat!
Review: This is the second volume in the Smiley trilogy, and it's rather darker than the first. The Hon. Gerald Westerby, journalist and overseas correspondent ("hack for a comic," as he calls himself) was a very minor character in the first book, but this one is very much his story, set in Vientiane and Bangkok and London, but mostly in Hong Kong. George Smiley, having rid the Circus of its mole, is determined to make the Service great again, and he proposes to do it by identifying whatever Bill Haydon had tried hardest to conceal. Drake Ko, Chinese tycoon, becomes the focus of George's efforts, and Jerry Westerby is resurrected and sent out East as the key field agent in the operation. The plot is a masterpiece of Le-Carréan complexity. The characters are clearly drawn and their motivations are carefully worked out. And the suspense of the final couple of chapters will keep you up late to finish it -- even though the ending is rather sad. I'm going straight on to the third volume.
Rating: 
Summary: A James Bond for the MENSA set
Review: This is volume two of what has become known as the "Karla Trilogy" (Tinker, Tailor being number one and Smiley's People number three). It is perhaps the weakest of the three, but the other two are so stunning that this assessment is hardly damning: this is still a wonderful book. I note that the plot is neatly summarized by a number of the other reviewers, so I'll skip it. I will also concur with them in noting that this is NOT the sort of book you read for James Bond thrills. This book more than any other of the spy genre shows the strategic skills necessary in espionage. What makes it so intriguing is that it's not just the obvious outsmart-the-opponent stuff, but the real down-and-dirty office politics kind of thing as well. Outsmart-the-ally, you could say. This is also the kind of book that makes you pay attention. Another reviewer noted that the end was "a mess." Yup, it is: in the sense that the plot lines are not all neatly resolved. Gosh, a spy book that's almost like real life. What a concept. This book is also very much of its period. Do we really remember how DEPRESSING the early 1970's were? Once-treasured institutions were falling about our ears. And poor George Smiley is now at the head of one of them: the thoroughly disgraced British Secret Service. Captain of a sinking ship, as one of the characters says. His efforts to salvage some dignity for the organization are fascinating to observe: a display of sheer brain power. It's typical LeCarre: extraordinarily developed characters, dense plot, intellectual rigor, vivid settings - and no one writing today strings words together so deliciously.
Rating:
Summary: A James Bond for the MENSA set
Review: This is volume two of what has become known as the "Karla Trilogy" (Tinker, Tailor being number one and Smiley's People number three). It is perhaps the weakest of the three, but the other two are so stunning that this assessment is hardly damning: this is still a wonderful book. I note that the plot is neatly summarized by a number of the other reviewers, so I'll skip it. I will also concur with them in noting that this is NOT the sort of book you read for James Bond thrills. This book more than any other of the spy genre shows the strategic skills necessary in espionage. What makes it so intriguing is that it's not just the obvious outsmart-the-opponent stuff, but the real down-and-dirty office politics kind of thing as well. Outsmart-the-ally, you could say. This is also the kind of book that makes you pay attention. Another reviewer noted that the end was "a mess." Yup, it is: in the sense that the plot lines are not all neatly resolved. Gosh, a spy book that's almost like real life. What a concept. This book is also very much of its period. Do we really remember how DEPRESSING the early 1970's were? Once-treasured institutions were falling about our ears. And poor George Smiley is now at the head of one of them: the thoroughly disgraced British Secret Service. Captain of a sinking ship, as one of the characters says. His efforts to salvage some dignity for the organization are fascinating to observe: a display of sheer brain power. It's typical LeCarre: extraordinarily developed characters, dense plot, intellectual rigor, vivid settings - and no one writing today strings words together so deliciously.
Rating:
Summary: Le Carre's best novel
Review: This novel is le Carre's greatest, finer than the previous novel, "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," and finer than its successor, "Smiley's People." Here le Carre's prose is at its richest and most psychologically penetrating. The parallels to other great "revenge" works such as "Paradise Lost" or "Moby Dick" are evident (note the epigraph to the novel, from a poem of Auden's), and the author's characterization of George Smiley, still his most endearing creation, is peerless. It's my understanding that le Carre had more time to devote to "The Honourable Schoolboy," and the extra effort shows, in spades.
Rating:
Summary: A subtle masterpiece.
Review: This novel, in my opinion John LeCarre's best, centers around an attempt made by the "Circus" to re-instate their wounded organisation and hopefully take revenge upon the insidious Moscow Centre. Enter poor Jerry Westerby. LeCarre's great strength in my opinion is that he doesn't hold the readers hand in any way. He shows you what is going on, but rarely dips into the character's thoughts or motivations. But the books are full of excellent prose and subtle shifts of intricate plot. It really will leave you in awe. And as a bonus, probably one of the best "Hong Kong" books you will ever come across.
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