A Legacy of Spies: A Novel

John le Carré

Sep 2017 · Sold by Penguin

About this ebook

#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.

Ratings and reviews

全書透過史麥利的手下Peter Guillam的回憶，串起le Carre最紅的兩本書The Spy Who Came in From the Cold和Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy，但把中間的一些空隙補齊。譬如Mundt是怎麼被MI6吸收的，還有Alec的線人被出賣的詳細過程。 新的故事有趣嗎？有。有必要嗎？沒有。A Legacy of Spies是一本多餘的書。它把前面的故事又說了一遍，只是把很多沒講的地方都講清楚了。前作沒講這些地方並非「疏漏」，它們也不是「故事的漏洞」。講了出來也沒有讓故事更完整。Le Carre近年來很紅，The Spy Who Came in From the Cold正在拍新的電視影集，可能是要為影集鋪路吧？喜歡le Carre對他的小說如數家珍，自然不會錯過這一本，不用我推薦。對沒看過le Carre的人，我推薦前面兩本，不推薦這一本。

Great insight into our world past and present hearts and heartlessnesses.

Wonderful book written as a tie in to his older , also wonderful , books.

About the author

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.