John le Carre is in a class by himself as an espionage novelist; Tinker, Tailor, Spy and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold are great novels. Unfortunately, to me, A Most Wanted Man doesn’t hold up to this level. The novel starts far too slowly, and while the intelligence and moral ambiguity that are le Carre novels’ hallmarks are present, Günther Bachmann is no George Smiley, and the terrorist Issa Karpov is no Karla. It made a good movie, though.
It waits to be seen if A Delicate Truth is a better read.