Agent Running in the Field

"[Le Carré's] novels are so brilliant because they're emotionally and psychologically absolutely true, but of course they're novels." New York Times Book Review

A new novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author John le Carré

Nat, a 47 year-old veteran of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, believes his years as an agent runner are over. He is back in London with his wife, the long-suffering Prue. But with the growing threat from Moscow Centre, the office has one more job for him. Nat is to take over The Haven, a defunct substation of London General with a rag-tag band of spies. The only bright light on the team is young Florence, who has her eye on Russia Department and a Ukrainian oligarch with a finger in the Russia pie.

Nat is not only a spy, he is a passionate badminton player. His regular Monday evening opponent is half his age: the introspective and solitary Ed. Ed hates Brexit, hates Trump and hates his job at some soulless media agency. And it is Ed, of all unlikely people, who will take Prue, Florence and Nat himself down the path of political anger that will ensnare them all. Agent Running in the Field is a chilling portrait of our time, now heartbreaking, now darkly humorous, told to us with unflagging tension by the greatest chronicler of our age.

"[Agent Running in the Field is] a tragicomic salute to both the recuperative powers of its has-been hero and the remarkable career of its nonpareil author." Kirkus

"Le Carré remains a master at showing us what spies do, wily spiders to the unsuspecting flies they entrap." Booklist (Starred Review)

"One of our great writers of moral ambiguity, a tireless explorer of that darkly contradictory no-man's land." Los Angeles Times

"No other writer has charted — pitilessly for politicians but thrillingly for readers — the public and secret histories of his times." The Guardian (UK)

John le Carré was born in 1931 and attended the universities of Bern and Oxford. He taught at Eton and served briefly in British intelligence during the Cold War. For the last fifty years he has lived by his pen. He divides his time between London and Cornwall.