A Murder of Quality

[A BBC Radio 4 Full Cast Dramatization starring Simon Russell Beale]The award-winning Simon Russell Beale stars as George Smiley in this BBC Radio 4 dramatization of John le Carres second Smiley novel. The distinguished cast includes Geoffrey Palmer and Marcia Warren. This tense, compelling dramatization perfectly captures the atmosphere of le Carres gripping, sophisticated thriller.George Smiley is one of the most brilliantly realized characters in British fiction. Bespectacled, tubby, eternally middle-aged, and deceptively ordinary, he has a mind like a steel trap and is said to possess ''the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin.''This dramatization, set in the early 1960s, sees him investigating a murder in a public school. When the wife of one of the masters is found bludgeoned to death, Smiley, out of loyalty to an old friend, agrees to look into the case. But his investigation raises a multitude of questions. Who could have hated Stella Rode enough to kill her? Why was her dog put down shortly before the murder? And what did Mad Janie see on that fatal night? To discover the truth, Smiley must lift the lid on a world of hidden passions and dangerous hatreds.