Murder in an English private school

A Murder of Quality by John Le Carre is a crime novel even though it features his greatest creation George Smiley in an early appearance. Smiley is “retired” from the security services and is asked to investigate by an old friend who he worked with during the war. Miss Brimley now runs a small magazine and she has recently received a letter from a faithful subscriber which claims that the writer’s husband is trying to kill her. He then learns that she has been murdered in a vicious attack and feels obliged to find out why. The book is set in the 1950s.

Stella Rode is the wife of a schoolmaster at Carne, a private school for the sons of wealthy men. She has come from a different background from the other wives of the schoolmasters and has never quite fitted into the elite world of the private school. Has she been killed because she has got in the way of her husband’s ambitions or is there another reason ? At first it appears that Stella has been picked on by the other wives and has not been accepted into their circle but as Smiley talks to more people it turns out that the situation is not as simple as that.

As Smiley investigates he discovers that many of the school masters and their wives have secrets to hide and that not everything is as it seems. He understands this world because he belongs to it but he also despises it because it makes outsiders of otherwise worthy people. The author obviously has some history with the private school system and some axes to grind but his antagonism to the whole structure doesn’t get in the way of what is an excellent crime story.

This book reminded me a lot in style and tone of A Small Town in Germany by the same author (see my review here) especially in its depiction of small mindedness and snobbery. I don’t remember having read it before and I liked the narration on the audiobook I listened to by Michael Jayston who is doing an excellent job of guiding me through this author’s novels.