Call For The Dead- 2 1/2 stars(POLLS)

[Joanne]

Call for the Dead-2 1/2 stars

I have wanted to read leCarre for a while and decided the time was now as the book sitting on the TBR had been there forever, not only did fit the tag but was usable in The POLLS challenge.

It was a slog for me. At only 168 pages, I should have breezed through it-but it felt like work for me to just read 3-4 pages a night. Granted this was his first book, written in 1961, and I did take that into consideration when deciding on a star rating (thus the 1/2 star to round up on Gr's).

I really liked our main character, George Smiley, a Foreign Service officer for "The Circus" (based on MI6). Smiley does a routine background check on another Foreign Service employee, who immediately afterwards commits suicide. From that point on it all became confusion for me. Remaining characters were dropped in without much pomp, and were very boring in the beginning. In fact, even Smiley was a bit of mystery until the middle of the book, where some background on him was finally put forth.

All in all, a mediocre read for me, the short page length is really all that kept me reading and not throwing it in the DNF pile.

[KateNZ]

Sorry this was such a slog - I’ve never read any Le Carre either and am not sure I’d like it, based on this