I finished listening to Smiley's People on Friday on the way to the park. In The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and The Honourable Schoolboy the title characters achieve their mission but come up short themselves. The end of Smiley's People was not as upsetting as usual. It was generally triumphant with only the title character's conscience attempting to rain on the parade.
I just wasn't convinced that he had gone as far down the bad path as he felt he had. So, LeCarre succeeds in not giving a happy ending, but only by forcing us to watch the events through the viewpoint of a self-debasing morally-conflicted supremely competent fat spymaster. Every other actor but the bad guy, would have reported only wonderful success.
I don't think I have a favorite LeCarre book. Maybe The Little Drummer Girl, but I just liked learning about the Palestinians. Anyway, this one is not really at the top of my list. But, it's higher than The Honourable Schoolboy. Maybe because I didn't slog through it in print, but got Frank Muller's amazing reading on cassette. Frank's the man.