If you are interested in the trilogy, almost nothing of consequence happens in the book that must be understood in order to read Smiley's People. It's convoluted, does not have compelling characters, and could have easily used a large chunk of editing to sharpen the text. * The second installment-The Honourable Schoolboy is, in my opinion, hardly worth the trouble.

Le Carre doesn't waste a lot of time going over old stuff in Smiley's people, but it provides much of the tension in the third installment of the trilogy.

In fact, I strongly recommend reading this before reading Smiley's people. It's exciting, it's deep, and it's subtle. We witness George Smiley and his team root out a mole planted decades ago by Smiley's nemesis, Karla. It is as much a psychological journey for George Smiley as a mystery that needs to be solved. I've read it a half dozen times and I believe it gets better every time.

* Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the fist installment, remains one of Le Carre's best novels. Especially in the case of “Schoolboy” - at first it was tough to see where the story was headed, but by the second half of the book Le Carre’s enthralling scenes, including some particularly gripping action in Khmer Rouge territory in Cambodia, kept me hooked.I have now finished re-reading the Karla Trilogy and am reviewing the final installment-Smiley's People.īut first, because this is a trilogy, let me sum up a few points: The first two books were much longer than the third and perhaps slower to develop at times, but they were worth it. But each give you something unique - a mole hunt within British intelligence in “Tinker,” the search for Karla’s major player in Hong Kong (a search that takes you to multiple Asian countries) in “The Honourable Schoolboy,” and the more personal finale of “Smiley’s People.” There was a long gap between reading “Tinker, Tailor” and the other two, which I recently finished, so I might need to go back and read the first one again. I really liked each book of this series, and have a tough time picking which one was the best. In the middle book of the trilogy, “The Honourable Schoolboy,” I had to chuckle at times at his maddeningly calm demeanor - it appeared that his eyes were barely open - during tense interrogation scenes.

I came to really enjoy George Smiley’s character, though. In Le Carre’s work - or, at least, in these three novels - you see a much different side of the job, where your hero (if you want to call him that) is a mild-mannered quiet type and where shades of gray overshadow good vs. Much of my past pop-culture-spy experience has been through James Bond and “Alias” - books, movies and a TV show that feature the flashy side of being a spy.

Le carre smiley trilogy