A review by jpnudell
The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré

3.5

The second book in the Smiley vs Karla saga is a longer, shaggier, and less tightly paced story than Tinker, Tailor. This one sees George, now temporarily in charge of a Circus stripped of its old luster or resources, dispatch Jerry Westerby, journalist and retired spy, to Hong Kong to investigate Drake Ko, a businessman, the owner of a bank account that has been receiving $25,000 in Soviet money, and the brother of Nelson Ko, a high-ranking Chinese naval officer. Jerry takes up the investigation, leading him into a dangerous game across the Hong Kong underworld, the bombed out airstrip in Vientiane, Laos, and into the jungles of Thailand in search of Tiny Ricardo, a pilot who formerly flew opium for the CIA and who is now presumed dead. In the course of the investigation, it is decided that Ko's weak link is his English mistress, Lizzie Worthington, but Jerry disagrees with George's decision to lean on her in order to get to Drake Ko. The Honourable Schoolboy retains Le Carré's flair for language (though I preferred Simon Vance's reading and will seek out his narration for Smiley's People), but the globe-spanning story that sees George confront the CIA in addition to his domestic rivals doesn't quite have the same momentum as its predecessor. This volume also suffers as the middle book of a trilogy that wasn't originally conceived of as such. Karla is a shadowy figure behind Drake Ko's payments, but while his actions are frequently alluded to, he is a much more distant figure in this story—despite George brooding over a portrait of the man he has hung in his office. This is still an effective spy story, but I was reminded why I struggled so much more with this one than with Tinker Tailor when I first read Le Carré in high school.