A new Le Carre authored from beyond the grave by his son Nick Harkaway was a very intriguing proposition, especially as the novel has both Smiley and Karla, Le Carre’s two most legendary characters, at its heart. It was actually far better than I’d anticipated, perhaps due to my overly pessimistic expectations.
The story is set after The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, with Smiley and the wider service suffering from the human losses of that particular operation. The full Circus cast is involved: Control, Connie Sachs, Jim Prideaux, Toby Esterhase, etc. The style capture Le Carre’s voice very authentically, with decent pacing, and that classic sense of uncertainty permeates throughout.
I struggled to pinpoint the discrepancies that meant it wasn’t 100% Le Carre. One aspect I think I missed was his genius for short physical descriptions of a character’s movement that instantly created a picture in your head; these were lacking. Plus there were a couple of points in the plot where character seemd to make very big decisions almost instantly; I felt that Le Carre would have either have really dragged us through the tortured decision-making, or alternatively layed more intrigue and/or misdirection into the decisions. They seems a little to simple and binary, and had the affect of jolting me out of the novel’s world.
However, these are pretty minor gripes. To emulate Le Carre is a very high bar and this is an excellent attempt. I would definitely read more from Harkaway if more are published.
