Murder of Quality

I happened upon a mystery film by John Le Carre called A Murder of Quality. Set in a boys' public school, the old spy Smiley is called in to try to solve a murder. The isolated and insulated school community is a hive of gossip, back-biting and blackmail. The wife of a new teacher at the school is beaten to death, but shortly before her death she had written to a relative to say she feared her husband was going to kill her. It turns out the woman was not well-liked, so there was no shortage of possible suspects.

There were an awful lot of characters, including several middle-aged women with short dark hair who were indistinguishable from each other. That made the plot difficult to follow at times. However, there were lovely scenes of the English countryside and the beautiful old school. The film features a very young (and to me, unrecognizable) Christian Bale.

Final Verdict for A Murder of Quality: Two Gherkins for lovely English scenery, but a somewhat confusing plot