A Murder of Quality (Penguin Modern Classics)

Stella Rode has twice disturbed the ancient cloisters of Carne School: firstly by being the wrong sort with her doilies and china ducks and secondly by being murdered. George Smiley who has his own connection with the school is asked by an old Service friend to investigate. Smiley knows that Stella feared her husband would murder her but as he probes further beneath Carnes respectable veneer he uncovers far more than a simple crime of passion. In his second novel le Carré moves outside the world of espionage to reveal the secrets at the heart of another particularly English institution. The result is a pitch-perfect murder mystery with George Smiley as master detective.THE SECOND GEORGE SMILEY NOVELBeautifully intelligent satiric and witty Daily Telegraph Review Beautifully elegant satiric and witty ―Telegraph About the Author John le Carré was born in 1931. For six decades he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the university of Bern then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5&6). He published his debut novelCall for the Dead in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novelThe Spy Who Came in from the Cold secured him a worldwide reputation which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogyTinker Tailor Soldier SpyThe Honourable Schoolboy andSmileys People. At the end of the Cold War le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoirThe Pigeon Tunnel was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novelA Legacy of Spies appeared in 2017. He died on 12 December 2020. His posthumous novelSilverview was published in 2021.