ALegacy of Spies

John le Carré was born in 1931. For six decades, he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the university of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5&6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel, A Legacy of Spies, appeared in 2017. He died on 12 December 2020. His posthumous novel Silverview was published in 2021.Not since The Spy Who Came in From The Cold has le Carré exercised his gift as a storyteller so powerfully and to such thrilling effectGripping, fast-paced . . . A splendid novelA brilliant novel of deception, love and trust to join his supreme espionage canonPerhaps the most significant novelist of the second half of the 20th century in Britain. He will have charted our decline and recorded the nature of our bureaucracies like no one else has. He's in the first rankIt gives the reader, at long last, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that have been missing for 54 years . . . A Legacy of Spies does something remarkable . . . Like wine, le Carré's writing has got richer with agele Carré's masterful new novelThe English canon has rarely seen an acclaimed novelist and popular entertainer sustain such a hot streak in old age . . . A Legacy of Spies achieves many things. Outstandingly, it is a defiant assertion of creative vigourA Legacy of Spies deploys a complex and ingeniously layered structure to make the past alive in the present once more . . . le Carré has not lost his touchHis writing is as crisp as ever . . . another tale of intrigue which will slip effortlessly into its place in the Smiley canonWhat are we to make of Smiley? What is his game? Do we like him? Admire him? Every le Carré reader has wrestled with these questions-and A Legacy of Spies brings them to the fore more directly than any previous bookIngeniousUtterly engrossing and perfectly pitched, it is a triumphWe are back in the more interesting territory of moral uncertainty and failure. What, Smiley asks, was he fighting for?The literary event of the AutumnI have re-read The Spy Who Came In From The Cold over and over again since I first encountered it in my teens, just to remind myself how extraordinary a work of fiction can beHe can communicate emotion, from sweating fear to despairing love, with terse and compassionate conviction. Above all, he can tell a tale. Formidable equipment for a rare and disturbing writerThe best spy story I have ever readA literary master for a generationGeorge Smiley is our favourite fictional spyle Carré has made and peopled a myth. Myths do not ageDeeply moving in its portrait of a man adrift in a climate he no longer understands[As] labyrinthine as you'd expect ... le Carré has always been a masterRazor-sharp insight from the battle-weary Guillam and fascinating glimpses into the murky spycraft at the height of the Cold War only add to the joy of this sublimely accomplished thriller This is a truly wonderful, morally complex, politically astute novel written with elegance and panache . . . the visceral thrill of its twists and its complexities, its edge-of-the-seat qualities [Le Carré's] writing has lost none of its pith or potency . . . his powers of invention have kept up with the pace of an ever-changing and complex world'Thrilling and fascinating - a satisfying close to the sagaThis sublime thrillerThis really is vintage le CarréIt's brilliantly done and very enjoyable[A] late-career triumphA splendid novelAn immensely clever piece of novelistic engineering

Chosen as a Book of the Year in The Times Literary Supplement, the Evening Standard, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, The Times

'A brilliant novel of deception, love and trust to join his supreme cannon' Evening Standard

'Vintage le Carré. Immensely clever, breathtaking. Really, not since The Spy Who Came in from the Cold has le Carré exercised his gift as a storyteller so powerfully and to such thrilling effect' John Banville, Guardian

Peter Guillam, former disciple of George Smiley in the British Secret Service, has long retired to Brittany when a letter arrives, summoning him to London. The reason? Cold War ghosts have come back to haunt him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of the Service are to be dissected by a generation with no memory of the Berlin Wall. Somebody must pay for innocent blood spilt in the name of the greater good . . .

'Utterly engrossing and perfectly pitched. There is only one le Carré. Eloquent, subtle, sublimely paced' Daily Mail

'Splendid, fast-paced, riveting' Andrew Marr, Sunday Times

'Remarkable. It gives the reader, at long last, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that have been missing for 54 years. Like wine, le Carré's writing has got richer with age' The Times

'Perhaps the most significant novelist of the second half of the 20th century in Britain. He's in the first rank' Ian McEwan

'One of those writers who will be read a century from now' Robert Harris