A Legacy of Spies: A Novel (The Penguin John le Carre Hardback Collection)

by John le Carre

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The undisputed master returns with his first Smiley novel in more than twenty-five years--a #1 New York Times bestseller and ideal holiday gift.

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.

• ISBN10: 0525501304
• ISBN13: 9780525501305
• Publish Date: 19 September 2017 (first published 5 September 2017)
• Publish Status: Out of Stock
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Diversified Publishing
• Imprint: Random House Large Print
• Edition: Large type / large print edition
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 368
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780525501305

Reviews

[viking2917]

While I enjoyed it, and appreciated revisiting with Leamas and Guillam and Smiley, I didn't quite see why he went back for this story as what is perhaps his last novel. It felt a bit anticlimactic. Still, if you're a LeCarre fan it's a must read.