Le Carré by the numbers, this is a poor addition to a magnificent body of work. When on form, Le Carré is one of the greatest novelists of his age, however in this outing he falls too easily into his familiar tropes without ever making them interesting enough to care about. The central character, Tim, is a rich, middle-aged very upper-middle class former spy (four ticks on the Le Carré bingo card) who is being cuckolded by his friend and unreliable former agent (two more ticks).

The story meanders, the characters interact with implausibly plummy dialogue which no person would actually conceivably speak (he simply never knew how to write working-class people, I'm increasingly convinced he never actually met one). The women are either harlots who betray or clucking mothers, none ever feel or speak like a real person. The adventure takes in Paris, Bath and Russia before slouching to a finish which feels more like a paragraph break than a conclusion.

This lacks the righteous anger of The Constant Gardener, the suspense of Tinker, Tailor and the enjoyable journey of The Night Manager. He has written much, much better.