After several taut and tightly written books by the author, and the flabbier but still excellent Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, this one went more off the rails. The plot is excellent, the schoolboy is well drawn, but damn there was a lot of opaque and incomprehensibly idiomatic text. This was also the first by the author that felt intentionally cinematic. Then there’s the length. I suppose saying the author used too many words is a bit like the quip about Mozart using too many notes, but yeah, sometimes he did. Finally, and the reason I dinged this one a star is that the foreshadowing removed all surprise. Was it intentional? The fact that it still engrosses probably earns the star back, but I’m still irked by all the incomprehensible bits.