Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
by John le Carre
A George Smiley novel
read: 2012
Guardian 1000 Novels

Mystery stories are funny; you almost can't evaluate them until you're done reading them.  I linked to an article a few weeks back suggesting that readers (and, for that matter, writers) do not need to finish books, but that mindset clearly doesn't work for a book like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.  There's a mole in the Circus (British Intelligence).  But who is it?  Well, if you never find out, it's not much of a story, is it?  The conclusion to a great mystery has to be foreseeable in hindsight but far from obvious.  Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy does a fine job here.

The story is more complex than The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, the other le Carre novel I read, with a bigger scope and more characters.  The ending is perhaps not quite as satisfying, but I think that is part of what makes the book interesting.  The various "good guys" characters have different reactions to the ultimate ferreting out of the mole, but whether they are angry or sad or relieved, none of them are happy.  None of them feels like, "Yeah, we just nabbed the bad guy!  Woohoo!"  That's one of the elements that make le Carre novels a bit deeper than your run-of-the-mill thriller.