Until last year, I had never read anything by John le Carré, and felt that I should. I tried to rectify the situation by reading Our Kind of Traitor, which was dire. I then realised it was published in 2010, quite some time after his most successful works. It seemed harsh to judge him on a novel written so long after the peak of his career, like assessing Lleyton Hewitt on his current performance rather than on his slam-winning heyday of over a decade ago. So I went for the big one: A Perfect Spy.

It was good: intelligent and atmospheric, with an air of authenticity surrounding the espionage shenanigans. The supporting cast of fellow British and American spies was great, full of backstabbing and power play. And there were some genuinely gripping scenes as they tried to close in on Pym and the truth slowly emerged around the wrong turns they took. The extensive autobiographical story of Pym himself was not so compelling, which was a shame as this takes up a large proportion of the novel. I also found it dated, full of a certain type of male superiority that went without question. I am a big fan of 19^th and early 20^th century fiction, so am perfectly comfortable with attitudes from a different time and place, but there was something about A Perfect Spy that made me think I probably won’t be rushing to read any more le Carré.