The Washington Times ran my
review of John le Carre’s A Legacy of Spies.
Although I don’t subscribe to
John le Carre’s leftist worldview, I’ve been reading and enjoying his spy
novels since I was a teenager in the 1960s.
I’m not fond of most of his
post-Cold War novels, as his political and anti-American sentiments mar the
stories for me, but I admire greatly his earlier novels, such as “Tinker,
Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” based on the notorious British spy and traitor Kim Philby,
as well as “The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.”
In his latest novel, “A
Legacy of Spies,” his 24th, the 85-year-old author returns to the scene of the
crimes, so to speak, from “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” “The Spy Who Came in
From the Cold” and his other Cold War novels. His great character, the
brilliant, bespectacled, physically frog-like master spy, George Smiley,
appears in the novel, albeit briefly.
But Smiley is the center of
conversation throughout the novel between former spy Peter Guillam and
officials of the current-day British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), also
known as MI6, and formally known as the “Circus” in Mr. Smiley’s day. (The old
headquarters was located at Cambridge Circus in London).
… Peter Guillam, now elderly
and in retirement, is the central character in “A Legacy of Spies.” He is
recalled to London by SIS headquarters to answer questions regarding the
operation that resulted in the death of British intelligence officer Alec
Leamas and his companion, Elizabeth Gold, who were shot and killed at the
Berlin Wall in “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.” The grown children of the
two are suing the SIS and intelligence officials have discovered that nearly
all of the classified records of the operation were destroyed by Smiley, or by
someone under his command. Guillam, perhaps?
You can read the rest of the
review via the below link:
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