A bleak and bitter story of wartime nostalgia and bureaucratic incompetence. Le Carre (according to his reflective Introduction) meant this as a stark reversal of the “romanticized” image of brilliant spymasters and byzantine plots we saw in his previous book, The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. So, don’t expect a similar experience if that is your previous exposure to Le Carre, and I would not recommend this book as an introduction to this author. For Le Carre fans, however, the book has value especially in further fleshing out his political and moral view toward his fictional subjects.