3½***. I would probably have rated this one at just 3*** except for the fairly strong Epilogue chapter. This is a reread (along with Le Carre's other first five novels in an omnibus edition), not having read them in decades. ( )

Going back and swooping up the le Carrés that I've chronologically missed. This one (with The Naïve And Sentimental Lover) falls between The Looking Glass War and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Set in the contrived, and now barely memorable, West German capital of Bonn, the plot explores the post World War II landscape of Western Europe. It barely touches on the USSR and its Eastern European allies, but is much more interested in what should be more friendly relations - both in allied countries, and also between departments of the same country.

One of the UK's low-ranking diplomats in Bonn has gone missing, and a hard-bitten spy, Alan Turner, is sent from London to investigate. The permanent staff in Bonn seem to be more keen to avoid a scandal than discover what happened, infuriating Turner, and allowing le Carré to excavate some of the class divisions that run through so many of his books.

This feels to me something of a stepping stone toward Tinker Tailor - the plot - and its structure - is becoming more complicated than in the earlier books, and the characters more morally nuanced. Additionally there's a significant amount of internal monologue which I don't remember seeing in other le Carrés. For me, while not unsuccessful, it did detract a little from the cleanliness, the suave efficiency of le Carré's prose. ( )

A Foreign Affair
Review of the Penguin Modern Classics paperback & Kindle eBook (2011) of the original Heinemann hardcover (1968).

Bonn isn’t pre-war, or war, or even post-war. It’s just a small town in Germany.

A Small Town in Germany does not feature the author's spymaster George Smiley & the Circus, his invented name for Britain's Secret Intelligence Service. It does take place in the Smileyverse as veteran Circus recruiter Steed-Asprey is briefly mentioned. It does involve a molehunter though. Alan Turner is with the Foreign Office and is sent to the British Embassy in Bonn, Germany (then the capital of West Germany) to investigate the disappearance of a minor embassy official. Meanwhile there is a groundswell of German Nationalist and anti-Western feeling embodied in the rise of a political figure.

Leo Harting had made himself quietly indispensable to the embassy staff by taking on tasks which others were reluctant to do. When he disappears it is discovered that various embassy files are gone with him. The suspicion is that he has defected to the Eastern Bloc. Curiously, various office items such as a lamp, tea kettle, file trolley etc. have gone missing over the past weeks as well. Turner meets with a certain amount of obstruction from embassy staff who are reluctant to think the worst of Harting.

See cover at https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cc/ASmallTownInGermany.jpg
Cover of the original 1968 Heinemann hardcover. Image sourced from Wikipedia.

Turner eventually uncovers the real reason for Harting's disappearance and events turn more dramatic for the final 20% or so of the book. I wasn't quite as taken with Turner as I have been with Smiley, so the preceding series of interviews with embassy staff were more a chore to get through. The overall cynical atmosphere of failed intelligence operations still carries over from the Circus novels.

I read A Small Town in Germany as part of my current ongoing Carré binge which began with seeing the biographical film The Pigeon Tunnel (2023) at the recent Toronto International Film Festival. It is one of his early books which I had never previously read.

Trivia and Link
Read an appreciation (NOTE: includes SPOILERS) of A Small Town in Germany at SpyWrite.com by Jeff, May 11, 2017. ( )

I had no idea that the United Kingdom's​ bid to join the European Union was rejected. Twice! Reading a spy book set during their bid to join while Brexit is happening in real life tickles me a bit.

My first le Carré book, and it was a good one. Highly recommend. ( )

John Le Carre, the master of the spy novel, writes an untypical spy novel here. The seediness of diplomatic life and the heirarchy and class structure in the embassy are laid bare. This is 1960s West Germany and Alan Turner travels to Bonn to uncover what has happened to someone at the Bonn embassy. Despite barrier in his way he uncovers some ugly truths. ( )