Book Review: The Secret Pilgrim

In the last few Smiley books, John Le Carre did not rip out my heart and stomp on it, so I entered The Secret Pilgrim with a false sense of security. The Cold War is in its death throes, the new world is dawning, no one’s sure what’s coming next, and on the verge of retirement, our protagonist Ned is looking back over his life. His reminiscences are loosely strung along the thread of a talk that Smiley is having with the new recruits Ned has been training for the Circus.

This was a mistake. This book destroyed me not once, not twice, but three times.

( Spoilers )