Really exciting and engaging to read throughout. However, difficult to talk about beyond that without the big spoiler censorship block, because I felt this was a story so about who the mole is, and the conclusion, despite that obviously only taking up the final few pages.

It's good, isn't it? The way that ending is written. The ideological justification, so consistent with what everyone knows about Hayden (which massively made me feel the lack of ideology in Transcription), which makes it feel more a fatal flaw than a belief. The way Smiley takes it - almost, I suppose one link away from, a scorned lover. It's personal, it's deeply felt, even as it's public domain and politics and therefore supposed to be impersonal. The actual Hayden-Prideaux thing is such an extraordinarily romantic, tragic event, series of events, relationship. I'm fascinated by the fact Hayden only really appears onscreen once before the end, getting up to oddities, yet he's present all the time, both personally and professionally (foreshadowing). He's an enigma, a shadow, an undoubtable weight in the centre of the canvas. It's an extrodinary bit of writing of absence and influence. I've seen the film, but couldn't remember much beyond Colin Firth being the mole, so without being sure, I was making my predictions based on who seemed the most Firth coded. I ended up being right, and had a moment of disappointment, before realising - before being told by the book - that I was supposed to know, that I would have known anyway, that everyone knows. Again, it's something to write that inevitable answer so satisfyingly. Denial and complacency and disappointment.

Good book.