The Honourable Schoolboy

The Honourable Schoolboy, published in 1977, is the second in what is considered the Karla Trilogy, written by internationally known spy author John Le Carré. While George Smiley plays a major supporting role, the main character is Jerry Westerby, a newspaper reporter and sometime British spy, who was a minor character in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, played by Joss Ackland, in the BBC miniseries of the same name (1979).

In this particular novel, George Smiley is now Chief of the battered British Secret Service (known as the "Circus"). He not only must rebuild the Circus but go on the offensive. When a money-laundering operation in Southeast Asia points directly to his opposite number in the KGB, Karla, Smiley dispatches Jerry Westerby (the "Honourable Schoolboy" of the title) to Hong Kong. Westerby finds the links from Karla to two Chinese brothers, Drake and Nelson Ko, as well as Drake's mistress, Lizzie Worthington. Westerby's subsequent infatuation with Lizzie threatens to destroy the operation before it can be brought to its conclusion.

According to Tinker, Tailor producer Jonathan Powell, there was some consideration given to producing The Honourable Schoolboy for the BBC. However, research indicated that the cost to film it would be prohibitive (due to all the location filming that would need to be done in Southeast Asia). Powell, therefore, decided to proceed with Smiley's People as the follow-up to Tinker, Tailor in 1982.

Also, in the foreward to a later paperback edition to The Honourable Schoolboy, Le Carré wrote that the story might have worked better had George Smiley been omitted altogether since he felt Smiley's appearances in the novel took away from the main story featuring Westerby.