The Looking Glass War

Poorly planned death trap
a dead department's last gasp
old men playing spy.

This book has two lives, thus, requiring two opinions.

1- As a fictional work, aimed at entertainment, the book succeeds until the climax. In the end we aren't entertained. Rather, readers are forced to accept the reality Le Carré has been insisting upon since the introduction. The characters were interesting and easy to relate with; especially John Avery. The storyline was smooth and we follow an incipient intelligence operation from composition, through training, and to execution. The execution was hacked off, leaving us feeling betrayed and left in the cold. With that, we see the author's brilliance, brashness, and the real story he showed us.

Calling this a Smiley novel is a stretch but the little gray man does make intermittent appearances.

**SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT**

2- Reading the introduction by the author, penned in 1991 and almost thirty years after original publishing, insight is obtained. His goal was to show the world the more realistic side of intelligence work. The mistrust between allied agencies. The deliberate lies told to recruited agents. The mystery of failed operations.

At the beginning of the story, we are shown a failed operation. One that ought to have been quite simple. We then observe as the same agency stages another operation, this one much more complex. As both fail, by the end of the book the author has shown us a complete cycle; ominous though it is.

This novel should be a study in all that can go wrong during an intelligence collection operation. The point punctuated by a poorly equipped group of overly eager “wanna-be's” lead by one or two “has been's.” A nightmare of counterintelligence indicators are on grand display as the ineptitude goes unanswered. The author chose not to highlight the damage done by such crude lacks of security. The behavior was more befitting a gaggle of middle schoolers in a lunch room rather than a military intelligence agency.

The book stressed me out, and for that, I think Le Carré deserves some sort of award.