The Naive and Sentimental Lover discussion

Seriously? Let's see David Baldacci or Dan Brown do this at the high point of their careers.

A brilliant book, and a courageous departure from the author's tried and tested successful formulae. Alas, never repeated.

Jovan wrote: "A brilliant book, and a courageous departure from the author's tried and tested successful formulae. Alas, never repeated."

There is a reason it was never repeated. For the next 50 years LeCarre wrote his superb espionage novels which themselves are works of enormous literary merit. This book was not repeated because the majority of readers and critics thought it ranged from poor to, in my own case, ghastly and beyond awful.