Title: Very disappointing
Review: Not a spy thriller, but a novel about self-absorbed middle-aged men who happen to be former spies. Which is fine, except the book is sold as a thriller, and the blurb is full of praise for the "tension" and "pace". Talk about false advertising! The story really only gets going in the last 70 pages or so, and then it suddenly ends without any resolution.Even considered as a character study with no pretensions as a spy thriller, this book disappoints. It's far too full of annoying "What-ho old chap" overgrown "public" (i.e. private) schoolboys, and the main characters are totally unsympathetic; Cranmer is a sad sack, Pettifer (encountered only in flashback) is a narcissistic boor, and Emma (likewise only seen in flashback) is a vacuous airhead.Thirty years ago, Le Carre might have taken this premise and made something worth reading out of it. Once every hundred pages or so, there is a flash of his former skill, which only makes the book more disappointing.
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