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Staff Pick
A Legacy of Spies brings us back to the familiar world of George Smiley, Peter Guilliam, and the Circus. We can once again enjoy the deft hand of Le Carré as he unravels a mystery begun in The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. This book masterfully recaptures the feel of Le Carré’s best novels, and the only sadness is you know that this is our last encounter with these characters. Recommended By Miriam S., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
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.
Review
"Any reader who knows le Carré’s earlier work, and quite a few who don’t, will assume that any attempt to second-guess the mandarins of the Service will backfire. The miracle is that the author can revisit his best-known story and discover layer upon layer of fresh deception beneath it." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"[Le Carré] can convey a character in a sentence, land an emotional insight in [a] phrase & demolish an ideology in a paragraph." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
Review
"Le Carré is such a gifted storyteller that he interlaces the cards in his deck so they fit not simply with this book, but with the earlier ones as well." The Atlantic
About the Author
John le Carré was born in 1931. After attending the universities of Bern and Oxford, he taught at Eton and spent five years in the British Foreign Service. The Spy Who Came In from the Cold, his third book, secured him a worldwide reputation. He divides his time between England and the Continent.