Thursday, June 04, 2009

A Murder of Quality - John le Carre


John le Carre is one of those authors whose novels I see lying around and often contemplate reading, without every picking one up to read.

Until now.

A Murder of Quality was a good, fun read. It's centred around the murder of a schoolmaster's wife in a public school in Dorset. For those reading this who aren't English, there are some very posh schools in that part of the world. The portrayal of life in the school is cynical, but not necessarily in contradiction with what I've been told by friends who attended what was likely to be the inspiration. It was fairly straightforward to establish who the murderer was, but there were plenty of twists and unexpected surprises in the tale to keep one in its thrall.

This is a great book to read on a commute, especially if you have any interest in the public school system, and I'm sure there'll be more le Carre to follow.

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