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A Murder of Quality Audiobook
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(3.00) - 2,133 listener ratings
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Beautifully intelligent, satiric and witty — Daily Telegraph
For Alisa Brimley, editor of the small magazine Christian Voice, receiving a letter from a longtime subscriber might otherwise be a perfectly normal occasion—except Stella Rode, the reader in question, writes that her husband is planning to kill her. Brimley calls upon an old wartime friend to help her investigate: retired Circus spy, George Smiley.
Before Smiley can begin, Rode is found murdered, and Brimley asks Smiley to venture to the small town of Carne, home of the elite Carne School where Rode's husband is a public school junior master. Once there, he sets about peeling back the layers of pretense and artifice that cloak both town and institution, and discovers that there's more to Rode’s murder than a simple crime of passion.
John le Carré’s second novel finds George Smiley in a classic whodunnit-style mystery. Trading the international intrigue of the Circus for the small village of Carne, A Murder of Quality is a deft examination of another uniquely British institution: the elite public school.
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"Such acute writing with painfully accurate observations of the class system from the top down. Murder Mystery or Crime are genres that would slot Le Carre's work into too enclosed a place, his characters, themes and sense of place and cultural backdrop are way too engaging."
— Simon (4 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
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Beautifully intelligent, satiric, and witty.
A Murder of Quality Listener Reviews
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" This is one Le Carre novel that is a straight up mystery and not a spy novel. It has lots of twists and turns and no one seems to be who you think...very well written. But I have to admit I missed the mystic of the spy genre. "
— Mitzi, 2/16/2014 -
" On par with Call for the Dead - still a murder mystery rather than a spy novel. THis one has good twists in it (slightly better than its predecessor). Still, not Tinker Tailor. "
— Laird, 1/22/2014 -
" Enjoyable but not the best Smiley book. "
— Conrad, 1/19/2014 -
" Too much murder mystery; zero espionage and intrigue. "
— Ben, 1/18/2014 -
" just finished reading Le Carre's first two novels. Considering how many of his later novels I have read, it was a good idea. "
— Tim, 1/18/2014 -
" My first Le Carre.. :) Going to read all of his... "
— Gayathri, 1/12/2014 -
" Very good. It's well written, fairly suspenseful and an interesting commentary on British education. "
— Allyson, 1/10/2014 -
" The book was a little bit tedious. Also, the ultimate perpetrator was for me easy to guess. I really missed a "spy twist", and some exciting parts. However, you kept reading because I would to know how it ended. "
— Anne, 12/22/2013 -
" Kind of like an Agatha Christie who-dunnit, but starring George Smiley instead of Poirot. Quite an enjoyable yarn that doesn't outstay it's welcome. "
— Stuart, 10/2/2013 -
" ahhhhh.... smiley! in a kind of dorothy sayers world. good beach reading. "
— Rachel, 9/18/2013 -
" One of LeCarre's earliest writings before he found his footing as the foremost cold war spy novelist. Its basically a whodunit in the manner of PD James, set in a boarding school in the English countryside. "
— Michael, 9/3/2013 -
" Another short one, but very good. "
— Pamela, 6/9/2013 -
" Am rereading what is an utterly boring book-- indicative of how little reading material we have until our shipment arrives. Though the book is only 180 pages long, Le Carre manages to be long-winded. I would love to learn how he transformed himself into a terse and engaging writer. "
— Valerie, 5/22/2013 -
" This is my third the Smiley novel and, so far, my favorite. A good mystery, well told -- can't beat that! "
— Carolyn, 3/8/2013 -
" I haven't ever read any le Carre, because I don't care for spy stories. But this was a mystery instead. Pretty good - very English! "
— Kim, 1/10/2013 -
" Smiley looks into a murder at a prep school. I like him as a spymaster. Not so much as a murder investigator. "
— Pat, 1/10/2013 -
" Good book, beginning to appreciate Smiley and his ways. "
— Rob, 12/23/2012 -
" A Murder of Quality by John le Carr "
— Kevin, 11/10/2012 -
" I Think that's a good book. "
— Daniel, 10/5/2012
About John le Carré
John le Carré, the pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell (1931–2020), was an English author of espionage novels. Eight of his novels made the #1 spot on the New York Times bestsellers list between 1983 and 2017. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, his third book, secured him a worldwide reputation as one of the greatest spy novelists in history. Numerous major motion pictures have been made from his novels, as well as several television series. After attending the universities at Berne and Oxford, he taught at Eton and spent five years in the British Foreign Service, serving briefly in British Intelligence during the Cold War. Being a member of MI6 when he wrote his first novel, Call for the Dead in 1961 in Hamburg, it necessitated the use of a nom de plume, by which he continued to be known. His writing earned him several honorary doctorate degrees and the Somerset Maugham Award, the Goethe Medal, and the Olof Palme Prize.
About Simon Vance
Simon Vance (a.k.a. Robert Whitfield) is an award-winning actor and narrator. He has earned more than fifty Earphones Awards and won the prestigious Audie Award for best narration thirteen times. He was named Booklist’s very first Voice of Choice in 2008 and has been named an AudioFile Golden Voice as well as an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009. He has narrated more than eight hundred audiobooks over almost thirty years, beginning when he was a radio newsreader for the BBC in London. He is also an actor who has appeared on both stage and television.