In a recent newsletter, Barbara Peters, owner of The Poisoned Pen, mentioned that we will not have signed copies of John le Carré’s latest novel, A Legacy of Spies. You can still order a copy through the Web Store. https://bit.ly/2iNH36u
There’s a great deal of buzz around this new book. Here’s the summary.
The undisputed master returns with a riveting new book—his first Smiley novel in more than twenty-five years
Peter Guillam, staunch colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, is living out his old age on the family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old Service summons him to London. The reason? His Cold War past has come back to claim him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of secret London, and involved such characters as Alec Leamas, Jim Prideaux, George Smiley and Peter Guillam himself, are to be scrutinized by a generation with no memory of the Cold War and no patience with its justifications.
Interweaving past with present so that each may tell its own intense story, John le Carré has spun a single plot as ingenious and thrilling as the two predecessors on which it looks back: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. In a story resonating with tension, humor and moral ambivalence, le Carré and his narrator Peter Guillam present the reader with a legacy of unforgettable characters old and new.
*****
Dwight Garner reviewed A Legacy of Spies in The New York Times‘ Books of the Times article, “George Smiley and Other Old Friends Return in John le Carré’s ‘A Legacy of Spies’. https://nyti.ms/2vD1O5Q
Perhaps the most riveting article is also in The New York Times, Sarah Lyall’s “Spies Like Us: A Conversation With John le Carré and Ben Macintyre”. https://nyti.ms/2vuRw80
If you haven’t yet had your fill, check out David Cranmer’s annotated list of books in Criminal Element, “Into the Cold: A George Smiley Primer”. https://bit.ly/2wYtNly
It’s enough to make you want to buy a copy of the book, isn’t it?