Miss Ailsa Brimley is in a quandary. She's received a peculiar letter from Mrs Stella Rode, saying that she fears her husband – an assistant master at Carne School - is trying to kill her. Reluctant to go to the police, Miss Brimley calls upon her old wartime colleague, George Smiley. Unfortunately, it's too late. Mrs Rode has just been murdered. As Smiley takes up the investigation, he realises that in life - as in espionage - nothing is quite what it appears. His investigation raises a multitude of questions. Who could have hated Stella Rode enough to kill her? Why was her dog put down shortly before the murder? And what did Mad Janie see on that fatal night? To discover the truth, Smiley must lift the lid on a world of hidden passions and dangerous hatreds.
A Murder of Quality, John Le Carre
Second in the Smiley series - this is another one of those sets of books that I waited too long to revisit. As mentioned in my review of the first novel, it was the tone and style of Le Carre's narration of AGENT RUNNING IN THE FIELD that tweeked my interest and when listened to in that downplayed, controlled manner, they really work. Helped by the narrator of recent listens being Michael Jayston. His tone and style makes for really enjoyable listening.
The second novel in the series really reminded me of the subtle differences between these and standard spy fiction, there's a lot of the classic detective in Smiley and the cases he fixates on. In this example he's doing a favour for an old friend and editor of a small newspaper - tracking down the story behind a letter from a worried reader suggesting her husband is trying to kill her. By the time the letter arrived, and Smiley investigates, the writer is already dead and the small town / university faculty setting plays a big part in the way that the truth is ultimately revealed.
Interestingly when I was thinking about re-reading this series, I came across a comment by Le Carre many years after he'd written this book along the lines of when he reread it, he considered it a flawed thriller, lifted by the pointed and very funny social commentary along the way. He certainly doesn't seem to think much of the English boarding-school system, which I believe he might have been a victim of himself. But it's not just the snobbishness and cruelty of that system that gets a roasting in A MURDER OF QUALITY, non-conformist Christian communities, particularly those connected with the working classes cop a bit of well-placed kicking this reader had absolutely no issue with at all along the way.
Originally published in 1962, A MURDER OF QUALITY was still extremely readable, ageing very elegantly indeed.