I am a faithful fan of John Le Carre’s writing and was excited to learn he had another book out. I can hardly believe that at 86, he is still turning out such brilliantly written novels. If you haven’t read him before, this is not the book to start with. Rather, it is last in a long line of espionage stories beginning with “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold” with the unlikely-looking master spy, George Smiley, who brought us through the Cold War era right up to present day.
George Smiley has a relatively small roll in this current book, but nevertheless, he is there behind the wings still mentoring Peter Guillam, the narrator, now like Smiley, an old man. Guillam, long retired from the British Secret Service, has been commanded to London from his farm in Brittany to answer for irregularities in an old 1960s operation, known as Operation Windfall, in what was then East Berlin. It seems that the children of two members of the Service, who lost their lives when trying to cross over the Berlin Wall, are threatening to bring the matter before Parliament. Smiley has gone underground, and it is left to Guillam to sift through the murky past, digging up old dossiers and finding comrades, many of whom have passed on. Memories are stirred up, most involving Alec Leamas, the covert spy who was working to find out information in the files of the dreaded East German Stasi.
Le Carre’s books don’t have a lot of fireworks and torture scenes as many thrillers do, rather they are filled with the dark angst of the characters who work in dangerous situations, often moles and double agents, who must come to grips with the shady business they are in. Le Carre is a master at creating suspense in a quiet way that is more bone chilling than any action packed movie you might see.
If you are a fan, you will not be disappointed in this latest book. I highly recommend it for those readers already familiar with the many brilliantly written books by Le Carre. I hope it is not the last we have heard of George Smiley.
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