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    A Legacy of Spies: A Novel
    A Legacy of Spies: A Novel
    A Legacy of Spies: A Novel
    Ebook309 pages4 hours

    A Legacy of Spies: A Novel

    By John le Carré

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    #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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Books
    Release dateSep 5, 2017
    ISBN9780735225121
    Author

    John le Carré

    John le Carré nació en 1931. A lo largo de seis décadas escribió algunas de las novelas que han definido nuestro tiempo. Hijo de un estafador, pasó gran parte de la infancia entre un selecto internado y el submundo de los garitos londinenses. A los dieciséis años encontró refugio en la Universidad de Berna y, más adelante, en Oxford. Tras una temporada como profesor en Eton, inició una breve carrera en los servicios de inteligencia británicos (MI5 y MI6). Su primera novela, Llamada para el muerto, vio la luz en 1961, cuando aún trabajaba para los servicios secretos. La tercera, El espía que surgió del frío, le valió la fama mundial, consolidada por el éxito de la trilogía compuesta por El topo, El honorable colegial y La gente de Smiley. Finalizada la guerra fría, le Carré amplió el horizonte de su narrativa hacia una escena internacional que incluía el tráfico de armas y la lucha contra el terrorismo. Sus memorias, Volar en círculos, se publicaron en 2016, y la última novela de George Smiley, El legado de los espías, apareció en 2018. El autor falleció el 12 de diciembre de 2020. Su novela póstuma, Proyecto Silverview, vio la luz en 2022. Un espía privado. Las cartas de John le Carré, editadas por su hijo Tim Cornwell, se publican en 2023.

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    Reviews for A Legacy of Spies

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    • 4/5
      Another chance to visit with some old friends who happen to be fictional.
    • 5/5
      Fascinating recontextulisation of Le Carré's early work. While there is little actual plot, this still works on many levels — a commentary on modern sensibilities and revisiting historic events; conversely, a revisiting of old conflicts, looking at their effectiveness now their immediacy has past; a revisiting by Le Carré of his early ouvre, refelcting on the interplay between the different stories; ultimately, there is a unexpectedly passionate and disarming pro-European cri de couer. Definitely not one to start with, but I found this very moving and enjoyable.
    • 5/5
      Would this book be as good if we didn’t know all that we do, if we hadn’t read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy, Smiley’s People, and seen the TV series and the movie? I don’t know, but this new novel reminds us that Le Carré is a genius at infusing this and those novels with duplicity. Smiley’s Ann, every plot turn, every structural trick, moles, double agents. We are immersed in it, and we feel like everything depends on our spying, like all of philosophy must emanate from deception, and, to quote Robert Duvall’s character in A Civil Action, “the truth is at the bottom of a deep deep hole”. Among the theories of the origin of genus Homo’s oversized brain, I favor Darwin’s notion that it must be sexual selection, like the Peacock’s tail, but I also like the idea that even if that is true, the idea that it evolved to tell stories and to deceive must play a part. We are able to read this novel easily, despite its complexity, and follow the changes in time, place, and point of view, but this is only possible because that’s how we think, at least to some degree, in everyday life. Old spy Peter Guillaum is called from retirement on his farm in Brittany back to England to face accusations about the real meaning of his activities before and during the action that make up the plot of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. He must mislead his interrogators, protect himself and protect his old friends. He is forced to descend through layers and layers of historical deception, in which he and his friends lied to the enemy, to the spies they were running, to other parts of their own organization, and to themselves. The climax is nothing much from a traditional plot point of view, but we get to revisit our old friend George Smiley and hear him tell us if there is a point to it all, and what it might be.
    • 2/5
      And the legacy of John le Carre. This was a sort of a wrap-up of the cold war era, about the fallout and damage to the abandoned children of spies, and to the institutions.

      I've read all of the author's books, or nearly all of them, and wanted to read what looks like a final one. Not satisfying at all as a spy story but revives some of the characters and fills in some of the organizational backstory. Peter Guillam as one of the last remaining cold war spies, is interrogated regarding the incidents involved with Spy Who Came In From the Cold, and the story is told in reports and interviews with a few flashbacks and in-person encounters with other people involved. Smiley is still alive but doesn't appear until the last few pages.

      I've changed my rating from three stars to two, since I was glad I've read it but won't recommend it to anyone who doesn't have a legacy of their own with these books.
    • 4/5
      Really enjoyed this short novel that my wife got me for Christmas. I’ve never read John LeCarre before and I’m not sure I’ve even read a spy novel before unless a few James Bond novels that I read in my teenage years count. But I certainly enjoyed a few of the LeCarre movies and this book just brought back the characters and accents and locations to me. At first, I thought maybe I’d seen a movie of this book, but no, it hasn’t been filmed. From reading reviews, this book is sort of a prequel sequel to The Spy Who Came In From the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and I think I saw both of those, so I guess that’s why it all seemed so delightfully familiar. Probably in retrospect this wasn’t the -right- book to start on, but I think I may try some more LeCarre anyway.
    • 4/5
      In this espionage-related fiction, heirs of two people killed at the Berlin Wall in the 1960 time-frame are bringing a lawsuit against retired agent Peter Guillam and the British Secret Service for the wrongful death of their relatives. Guillam has been summoned London to discuss the threatened civil action. As he reviews documents, he tells the story of what happened behind the scenes of Operation Windfall, the project covered in le Carré’s earlier work The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. (1963).

      The author has created a cast of well-fleshed out characters. Some interact in the present, and we also see their actions from the past, gaining further insights into their motivations. Characterizations took precedence over plot. For a spy novel, there’s not a lot of action. Flashbacks comprise a significant portion of the story and I felt the past narrative was more compelling than what is taking place in the present. I picked up the audio book for entertainment on a driving trip and did not realize it was book #9 in a series. There were a few places where additional information would have come in handy, and I imagine some of these details were supplied in prior books. I particularly enjoyed the author’s writing style, which conveys a subtle intelligence.

      The audio book reader, Tom Hollander, an English actor, was fabulous! He performed a variety of accents (including Irish, Scottish, American) and the voices of the different characters were easily distinguished. He was also tasked with reading agents’ reports and various documents, and he made it easy to follow.

      Overall, even though the resolution was not completely satisfying, I still enjoyed it and was entertained for almost eight hours. Recommended to fans of le Carre’ who want to revisit these beloved characters, and anyone interested in espionage or the Cold War. It has inspired me to read more from this author.
    • 5/5
      Peter Guillam is summoned from retirement in France to answer questions about a Circus cold war operation in Berlin which resulted in two deaths. Relatives of the dead believe they have uncovered details from old Stasi files, which suggest negligence by the Circus in general and Guillam in particular, which justify large damages. Guillam is lead through the existing paper trail, reliving the operations with attempts to incriminate himself. Fascinating window into the Cold War and in particular divided Berlin.
    • 5/5
      A master at work.
    • 4/5
      Weaves all the previous books in a fantastic manner, but it does mean you will have to have read them (not a bad thing that). The ending felt somehow disconnected and just too neat with all those perfect resolutions.
    • 4/5
      This is the last of the George Smiley series and it catches us up with some of those characters that appeared in the previous thrillers. Here we don't have an operation related to the Cold War, we have an operation looking into a Cold
      War operation. I can imagine the comments about that from the Circus.

      In this book we no longer have the brash young Peter Guillam of previous books. Here there is a man of advanced age living quietly on the farm where he grew up. He receives a letter that summons him to London. When he arrives he learns he's the subject of an investigation by young turks who have no real understanding of the Cold War or those operations that were part of it. Peter realizes they are a great danger to his current life and all he can do is begin to investigate his own past. As he does, he seeks out former operatives his readers remember well including George Smiley.

      Le Carre has not lost his touch and ends the series with heart thumping suspense. I could start right now reading them again.
    • 5/5
      As The Guardian says, "Vintage Le Carré as he ingeniously closes the circle of his long career."
      This is so perfectly le Carré, always so wonderfully written, so deeply sad about us human beings, and so, so moving, too; and mostly.
      What an extraordinary career (I've read practically all of his work), what an unbelievably satisfying read, well into the twilight of that career. Goodness.
      What a writer.
    • 5/5
      What a pleasure to be reunited with all of the wonderful characters of the George Smiley series. Whenever this grandmaster writes about spies, somehow you feel that he's just writing about all of us.
    • 4/5
      A nice, gripping return to form by la Carré, featuring many of our old friends from previous stories. Read in one sitting on a lazy summer afternoon.
    • 3/5
      What a disappointment! Unfortunately yet more evidence of master spy story teller Le Carre's rapidly declining literary powers.
      Apart from the portrayal of Peter Guillam not a single character is fully fleshed out - some, e.g. who is the "bald man from the multi-coloured volvo" (pages246-249 ) & why is 'Christoph' one moment the "walking four feet behind me, which is where the well taught gunman should be" and a just little walk later the "Christoph was beside me, slouched over the parapet, retching and sobbing in gulps of pain and anger" (page 243-249)?
      Then there's the complete lack of George Smiley until the denouement (I suppose Le Carre intended it to be though it is so obscure it's hardly worth the read) except he's off in a foreign library & like some grand poseur declaims on what he will or won't do on Guillam's behalf, but there's bugger-all actual explanatory accounting for why the 'Service' & the politically correct 'Legal eagles' have left Smiley out of the loop!
      Then there's the killing of Alec Leamas & his lady friend - the reasons for Mundt having them killed is clear, but detail on how the East German nasty (despite allegiance to UK) managed to accomplish that at the Wall is totally missing!
      The above sort of loop-holes in narrative on the characters and episodes drag the whole 'Legacy' into disrepute because it really does not stack up as any type of possible indictment of Peter Guillam for alleged misconduct that either the spurious relatives or the Parliamentarians could build a case around.
      I gave it 3 Stars because at least in 'Legacy' Le Carre continues that quality of literary vocabulary which was & is a hallmark of the great authors.
    • 5/5
      I loved this. It was everything I hoped for in a new Smiley novel, except maybe not enough of Smiley himself. This is really Peter Guillam's story and a remembrance of the events of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. For fans of le Carre, there's a strong sense of nostalgia in this too-short novel. If you haven't read TSWCIFTC - you need to read that first. It's short, too, and an incredible work of literature in itself. You should probably read Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy first, too, if you haven't already. It's not critical, but there are spoilers for that book in this one, so consider yourself warned.

      This has left me with a book hangover that I fear only another le Carre novel can cure. Maybe it's time I reread the Smiley novels.
    • 5/5
      „Das Vermächtnis der Spione“ von John le Carré ist ein klassischer Spionageroman aus der Welt der Geheimdienste während der Zeit des Kalten Krieges und nimmt direkten Bezug zu seinem Roman „Der Spion, der aus der Kälte kam“.

      Der Roman beginnt im Jahr 2017. Peter Guillam, der ehemalige Assistent von George Smiley, einem der wichtigsten Spione des „Service“, des britischen Geheimdienstes, ist längst im Ruhestand und lebt auf seinem Bauernhof in der Bretagne. Da erhält er einen Brief aus London, er möge in einer wichtigen Angelegenheit und zum Zweck einer Stellungnahme sofort in die Zentrale des Service nach London kommen.
      Was mit einem höflichen Gespräch beginnt, ist eine versuchte Aufdeckung der Operation Windfall. Damals, im Jahr 1961, war Alec Leamas, ein britischer Meisterspion, zusammen mit seiner Freundin Elizabeth Gold bei einem angeblichen Fluchtversuch vor der Berliner Mauer erschossen worden.
      Auch wenn die Akten leer bis lückenhaft sind, versuchen Bunny und Laura, die Anwälte des Service, Peter Guillam dazu zu bewegen, ihnen die Wahrheit über diese Operation zu erzählen. Guillam war als Assistent von George Smiley in diese Operation mit einbezogen und außerdem war Alec Leamas nicht nur ein Kollege, sondern Peters Freund. Der britischen Regierung droht eine öffentliche Anklage samt Untersuchungsausschuss, veranlasst vom Sohn von Alec Leamas und der Tochter von Liz Gold. Da George Smiley selbst nicht auffindbar ist, soll Peter Guillam als Hauptschuldiger angeklagt werden.
      Wird es gelingen, die in der Vergangenheit begrabene Operation Windfall und die wahren Hintergründe aufzuklären? Was ist damals wirklich geschehen – zu viele Fragen sind noch offen …

      Der Roman „Das Vermächtnis der Spione“ erweckt die Ereignisse der Zeit des Kalten Krieges und insbesondere die Einsätze der britischen Spione in der damaligen DDR nochmals zum Leben. Der Zeitrahmen liegt zwischen 1957 und 1961. Erzählt wird aus Sicht von Peter Guillam in der Ich-Form. Da er natürlich viele Dinge in diesem Geflecht der Geheimdienste, sich konkurrierender Abteilungen und Personen, nicht wissen konnte, werden seine Erinnerungen durch Berichte, Akten, Briefe ergänzt. Dieser Wechsel der Perspektive wird vom Autor gekonnt als Spannungsmittel eingesetzt, aber auch, um viele menschliche Zwischennuancen zu erfassen.

      „Wie weit können wir in der Verteidigung unserer westlichen Werte gehen, ohne diese Werte preiszugeben?" Diese Grundfrage der Menschlichkeit in der grausamen, gefährlichen Welt der Spionage zieht sich durch alle Geschehnisse und Handlungen dieses Romans, der Operation Windfall.

      Dem Autor John le Carré ging es nie darum, nur seine Erfahrungen aus seiner eigenen Zeit beim britischen Geheimdienst in spannende Thriller zu fassen, sondern er ist ein Meister der Zwischentöne, der Hintergründe seiner Geschichten, darauf bedacht, dass die komplexen Zusammenhänge ein realitätsnahes Gesamtbild eines möglichen Vorfalls ergeben. Spione werden hier nicht verherrlicht, sondern folgen ihren Aufträgen, müssen oft improvisieren und sind definitiv keine James-Bond-artigen Helden.


      Der Hauptprotagonist ist diesmal eindeutig Peter Guillam, auch wenn George Smiley, der „rundliche, bebrillte, stets bekümmerte“ Spion, den ganzen Roman hindurch im Hintergrund präsent ist, bzw. durch die Rückblenden, Briefe, Akten, Erinnerungen immer wieder in den Vordergrund geholt wird. Zu Peter Guillam sagt er: „Sie waren ein loyaler Gefolgsmann. Es gehörte nicht zu Ihrem Job zu fragen, warum jeden Morgen die Sonne aufgeht.“
      Das Coverbild weist auf eine weitere Hauptprotagonistin hin, Doris Gamp. Sie lebt in Ostberlin und gibt Informationen an den britischen Geheimdienst weiter, meistens über Peter Guillam. Ihr Codename ist TULIP.
      Die handelnden Personen, sowohl in der Vergangenheit, als auch in der Gegenwart, sind schnörkellos beschrieben und ihre Handlungen sind nachvollziehbar.

      Ganz sicher ein Roman für Leser, die auch schon andere Bücher der Serien um den Spion George Smiley gelesen haben. Auf Grund der sich ohnedies aus den Rückblenden ergebenden Handlung kann „Das Vermächtnis der Spione“ natürlich auch von am Genre Spionage und Kalter Krieg Interessierten gelesen werden, die noch keinen anderen Roman von John le Carré kennen. Meiner Meinung nach sollte man jedoch zumindest „Der Spion, der aus der Kälte kam“ vorher lesen, einerseits um schneller mit der Geschichte vertraut zu werden, andererseits, weil diese völlig andere Sichtweise der damaligen Ereignisse dieses neue, finale Buch der Serie noch interessanter macht.

    • 4/5
      Peter Guillam is retired from The Circus and living peacefully on his farm in Brittany when he is summoned to London. The Circus is being sued as a result of a long-ago operation and Peter is being set up to take the fall. Guillam tells the story of Operation Windfall in flashbacks and memos. The plaintiffs are the children of the victims of Windfall, who have little memory of the parents they lost or of the Cold War they were fighting. Peter Guillam is a disciple of George Smiley, and this novel deepens the story told in 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' and 'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold.'
    • 4/5
      This might be John Le Carre's last book. After all he is 86 years old; but if it is his last it is a fine ending to a great career.

      As usual this book involves British spies but the plot is not foiling a modern terrorist scheme. Instead Le Carre takes us back to the Cold War to examine a case in which two British spies were shot in East Berlin near the Berlin Wall. Peter Guillam, now retired on his family farm in Brittany, get called back to London to tell all he knows about the operation called Windfall. The two people who died in East Berlin left children who have now grown up and decided to sue the British government for the wrongful death of their parents. Peter was in on all the details at the time as a confidant of George Smiley. No-one can find Smiley so Peter will have to do. Slowly Peter divulges some of what he knew but he still keeps some secrets out of a sense of duty to Smiley. The people questioning him on behalf of the government know he is not disclosing everything and they are prepared to make him a scapegoat. It's a dilemma.

      I'm not sure if I completely buy the idea of children, even now that they are adults, having enough leverage to make the British government run scared. However, the rest of the story is vintage spy stuff.
    • 4/5
      Legacy of Spies, John le Carré, author; Tom Hollander, narrator.
      If you like the writing style of David Cornwell, better known as John le Carré, this book is worth the read. It is a well organized exposé of a past espionage operation, that was a thriller, rather than this novel actually being the thriller. This novel, instead, is about a case that took place about half a century before, in the life of the now aged and retired, George Smiley, a legend in the British Secret Service, and his protégé, Peter (Pierre) Guillam who is also now retired. The novel makes use of the author’s exceptional research over his lifetime.
      John le Carré is now in the second half of his eighth decade on this earth. In his excellent prose, he presents a rather detailed description of the spy craft that is involved in an action, as well as the necessary cover-ups used when not all goes according to plan. Some are rather cold-blooded. The risks and rewards of working for The Office are shared in all the glory and gloom of the results.
      “The Office” or The Circus” as the world of British “spydom” is also known, is inhabited by a variety of characters that are recruited in a variety of ways. Some are sought for their expertise, some for their appearance, some for their gender. Peter recruits spies. There are a great number in the book, and sometimes, keeping track of each is difficult. I hope the print book lists them.
      Basically, this is the story of an operation called Windfall that was headed up by a man, code name, Mayflower and run by The Control. George Smiley, a spymaster of past fame in le Carré’s books, moved all these people around like chess pieces. He was a brilliant planner. On this case, he made use of Peter, who was willing to do anything necessary for G-d, his country, and George Smiley. He also loved his women.
      When it appeared that the Windfall operation was compromised, and agents were in danger, a cover-up was launched. The details of Windfall remained hidden for decades until the survivors of some of the agents who lost their lives, started asking questions and demanding fuller answers. Eventually, they threatened to sue and prepared a law suit. Peter was called in and questioned relentlessly. He was unable to locate George Smiley. Would he be the sacrificial lamb used to protect the overall image of the Service in these changing times when everyone and everything was suspect instead of sacrosanct as it had been in the past? At the time of the operation in question, Peter was a young man who had been sowing a lot of wild oats, not necessarily attesting to a man of great character. Could all the events be spun to make him the villain?
      It is a fascinating story of the inner workings of the British Spy Service complete with its protocols, cover-up efforts, debriefings, damage control, safe houses, and tactics. As it exposes betrayals and loss of life, it illustrates the sacrifices of those left behind as they pick up the pieces of their lives. It is not only the agent that does his/her part. The family suffers with them.
      As the novel exposes the methods, lies and manipulation used to get people involved in this business, it also illustrates how expendable a spy becomes when compromised or when rash decisions are made like disobeying orders, regardless of the reason. The larger picture was always considered greater than the life of the spy. Because the story covers Russian efforts to recruit spies and double agents, which is in the news today, it is really timely.
      Tom Hollander, the narrator of this book, did a fantastic job making what could have been dull, lengthy descriptions far more fascinating than tedious.
    • 4/5
      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 anti-climactic. Still, if you're a LeCarre fan it's a must read.
    • 4/5
      If you've not read john Le Carre, then you should probably leave this alone. If you want to get into him with this book, either read "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" or see the excellent Richard Burton movie first.

      Le Carre's getting old and so are his characters. It's a long time since the Cold War ended and the veterans of that war (the George Smileys and the Peter Guilliams) are not living the lives of revered veterans but are old bitter men, living with the guilt of the things they did in the shadows of that war and wondering what they did those things for. Did their actions bring about the end of the Cold War, the dissolution of Russia, or are they just ineffectual footnotes to history?

      Guilliam is brought out of retirement back to London to face accusations about the events depicted in "The Spy Who Came In From The Cold" and other early Le Carre novels. It seems The Service is being sued by the grown up children of the dead agents and the current Service wants to know what really happened. Le Carre uses Guilliam's memories and old memoranda to try and make sense of it all.

      I very much liked this book, as I like most of Le Carre's work, but I'm afraid the ending left me puzzled. Not so much because I didn't understand it but because the story didn't really have a resolution. But maybe that's Le Carre is trying to say. For these sad characters who gave their lives, for what, "For England?" as Smiley says, maybe there is no resolution.
    • 4/5
      In a series of eight previous books, John le Carré created a world of spies who fought the Cold War with grit, determination, an occasional lapse of morals, and a genuine regret for those lapses. He also created a wonderful cast of characters, most especially George Smiley, but quite a few others who populate Britain’s “Circus,” the Directorate of Military Intelligence or MI6, analogous to the U.S. CIA. Le Carré's ninth book in the series, A Legacy of Spies, is no disappointment.

      Le Carré’s reputation was made with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold in 1963. This latest book is something of a retelling of the earlier work, but from the point of view of Peter Guillam, Smiley’s faithful assistant. In fact, the second book is set several decades later than The Spy. The British government is being sued by the descendants of the agents who were sent to their deaths in the earlier book. Guillam is a reluctant witness to the events that are the basis of the lawsuit. Le Carré cleverly lets Guillam tell the reader what he says to attorneys for the plaintiffs and for the government, but he often does not tell the truth.

      George Smiley appears only briefly, but his reputation and aura linger in the background throughout the story. Perhaps Smiley should not play too important a role because if the author were entirely consistent with his earlier works Smiley would be about 113 years old!

      Evaluation: Le Carré is a master of English prose, and even though this is a spy novel, it is also excellent literature.

      (JAB)
    • 5/5
      There is one word to describe John Le Carre’s book, A LEGACY OF SPIES.
      That word is PERFECTION.
      An extra, added bonus was that as I read, I kept referring to the recent movie, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It was very satisfying to read A LEGACY OF SPIES and have the character’s images be present in my mind - a 3-D book.
    • 4/5
      The legacy of the Cold War (only the Cold War?): after 40 or more years the past catches up with Smiley’s ’loyal foot soldier’ Peter. The aim justifies the means. Collateral damage? To be regretted, surely, but thats how it is. - The seediness of it all. Was it worth it? And for what?

      I preferred this book over the two by le Carré I remember well: Constant Gardener & Absolute Friends. (XII-17)
    • 5/5
      Peter Guiliam a former British spy now retired in Brittany is summoned back to London by the British Secret Service. They seek to extract from Peter details of a murky operation during the cold war to protect a source. But was he a source or a double agent? The operation ended badly with a British spy and his female companion being shot at the Wall trying to escape. Now the son of the agent and daughter of his companion are threatening to sue the service which would expose all sorts of dirt to the public and ministries.

      Readers of A Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy will welcome back many characters. A Legacy of Spies fills in a back story of these two novels and shares their moral ambiguity. As usual LeCarre provides sharp portraits of the characters and writes convincingly of spy craft.
    • 3/5
      The most impressive aspect is the self-examination, described late in the story. Was all the effort poured into Cold War intelligence work worth it? Did it stop wars? Did we do it because they did? Or was it a case of politicians wanting to thin they are “one up” on the other fellow? And his European outlook is so refreshing. Reminds me of the heyday of Robert Maxwell’s newspaper, The European”. Maxwell’s story is somehow akin to the world of Mr. Smiley, but will probably never be told.



      What’s all this guff about him not being an ‘artist’ and ‘at its best, operates at a high literary level?’



      When is the poor man to be rid of snarky comments? Possibly the best policy is to have a journalist review him, rather than the rat pack of other, less successful, writers. Le Carré has earned the right to be gloriously appreciated without the endlessly snide bollocks debate about genre writing.



      Is there any clue as the year in which this book is set? Because if it is set in 2017 (or thereabouts) George Smiley would be well over 100.



      It is clear from Le Carré’s earliest novels that Smiley had left “his unimpressive school” in the 1920s and been recruited, while at his “unimpressive Oxford College” by the “Overseas Committee for Academic Research” on “a sweet July morning in 1928.” As such I’d be expecting George to be celebrating his 110th birthday about now. Perhaps Peter Guillam, who must be well into his 80s, merely imagined his old colleague – the way old people have conversations with the dearly departed dead, because they seem more real than those who are left alive. Le Carré employs two layers of flashback to get us into the appropriate time period.





      If you’re into Spy Fiction. read the rest of this review on my blog.
    • 4/5
      This novel revisits some of the events of Le Carre's earlier works about George Smiley and the complex operations of British spydom during the Cold War. The legality and morality of the events we may have already read about are called into question by the new bureaucrats in British Intelligence. As a result, Peter Guillam is brought out of retirement to answer for the actions that he and his colleagues participated in.
    • 5/5
      I'd give John LeCarre's 'A Legacy of Spies' 6 stars if I could. The acknowledged master of the genre brings it all home with a novel that ranks among his best. I don't know if he intends it to be his swan song, but if so it's a great one.

      If you're familiar with LeCarre's 'Smiley' spy thrillers, you'll recognize the characters in 'Legacy', which serves as both a backstory and sequel to 'The Spy Who Came In From the Cold' & 'Tinker, Tailor....'. In Legacy, children of characters killed during an operation depicted in his previous books are suing the British intelligence services and one of Smiley's long-retired lieutenants is called in to London to be debriefed by the current group of spies who view him and the 'old ways' with disdain. He quickly surmises that he's being hung out to dry. He's the narrator.

      The story of the operation that's under the microscope is told via flashbacks in the form of notes and other written artifacts explained by the narrator. As his debriefing becomes increasingly contentious, he reminisces about his career, actions, other characters, loves, etc., while also plotting how to protect himself and others close to him. It's a great way to tell the story. In the past, I've had problems deciphering the sometimes incomprehensible Brit colloquialisms that LeCarre tends to use, but the artifacts and their explanations are much clearer.

      What continues to fascinate me about LeCarre's work is his intricate plotting of the 'game within the game within the game....etc.' that Smiley and his group performed. I won't go into how it all turns out, but as with all of his work there isn't shoot 'me up violence, car chases, or explosions at the conclusion . There's an ending that's logical with enough twists and turns to make an experienced reader of his work say 'hmmm' to himself several times. The writing as always is superb, the dialogue as well, the tradecraft spot-on, and the plot inventive and satisfying. It's LeCarre wrapping things up and it's great.
    • 3/5
      This is not the master's best. In fact, I did not even know how the book ends and I want this clarity. Peter Guillam, who worked with Smiley to bring down Haydon in Tinker, Tailor, is sort of happily retired on his 199 acre farm in
      Brittany, when he is summoned to London to aid the Circus in defending a lawsuit from Alec Leamas's son and Liz
      Gokd's daughter that the circus ended deliberately the lives of spies who were in 'the Spy Who Came in from the Cold. There is a lot of old Circus bullshit and nonsense and Smiley is pissed off big time. At the end of the book i did not care,





      ;ld's
    • 5/5
      Le Carré is 85 and appears to be at the height of his powers. Amazing.

      While this novel is set 50 years after The Spy Who Came In from the Cold (I think...when this novel takes place is hazy...I think it's present day, but that would make Smiley over 100 in his cameo), it is the finest prequel I've ever read. Le Carré effortlessly weaves new details into an old story, every new idea works perfectly, and I think he manages to give a handful of old spies their humanity back in some small way.

    Book preview

    A Legacy of Spies - John le Carré

    1

    What follows is a truthful account, as best I am able to provide it, of my role in the British deception operation, codenamed Windfall, that was mounted against the East German Intelligence Service (Stasi) in the late nineteen fifties and early sixties, and resulted in the death of the best British secret agent I ever worked with, and of the innocent woman for whom he gave his life.

    A professional intelligence officer is no more immune to human feelings than the rest of mankind. What matters to him is the extent to which he is able to suppress them, whether in real time or, in my case, fifty years on. Until a couple of months ago, lying in bed at night in the remote farmstead in Brittany that is my home, listening to the honk of cattle and the bickering of hens, I resolutely fought off the accusing voices that from time to time attempted to disrupt my sleep. I was too young, I protested, I was too innocent, too naive, too junior. If you’re looking for scalps, I told them, go to those grand masters of deception, George Smiley and his master, Control. It was their refined cunning, I insisted, their devious, scholarly intellects, not mine, that delivered the triumph and the anguish that was Windfall. It is only now, having been held to account by the Service to which I devoted the best years of my life, that I am driven in age and bewilderment to set down, at whatever cost, the light and dark sides of my involvement in the affair.

    How I came to be recruited to the Secret Intelligence Service in the first place – the ‘Circus’ as we Young Turks called it in those supposedly halcyon days when we were quartered, not in a grotesque fortress beside the River Thames, but in a fustian Victorian pile of red brick, built on the curve of Cambridge Circus – remains as much of a mystery to me as do the circumstances of my birth; and the more so since the two events are inseparable.

    My father, whose acquaintance I barely remember, was according to my mother the wastrel son of a wealthy Anglo-French family from the English midlands, a man of rash appetites, fast-diminishing inheritance and a redeeming love of France. In the summer of 1930, he was taking the waters in the spa town of Saint-Malo on Brittany’s north coast, frequenting the casinos and maisons closes and generally cutting a dash. My mother, sole offspring of a long line of Breton farmers, at that time aged twenty, also happened to be in town, performing the duties of a bridesmaid at the wedding of the daughter of a wealthy cattle auctioneer. Or so she claimed. However, she is a single source, not above a little decoration when the facts were against her, and it would not at all surprise me if she came into town for less upright purposes.

    After the ceremony, so her story goes, she and a fellow bridesmaid, the better for a glass or two of champagne, played truant from the reception and, still in their finery, took an evening stroll along the crowded promenade, where my father was also strolling with intent. My mother was pretty and flighty, her friend less so. A whirlwind romance followed. My mother was understandably coy about the pace of it. A second wedding was hastily arranged. I was the product. My father, it appears, was not naturally connubial, and even in the early years of marriage contrived to be more absent than present.

    But now the story takes an heroic turn. War, as we know, changes everything, and in a trice it had changed my father. Scarcely had it been declared than he was hammering on the doors of the British War Office, volunteering his services to whoever would have him. His mission, according to my mother, was to save France single-handed. If it was also to escape the ties of family, that is a heresy I was never permitted to utter in my mother’s presence. The British had a newly formed Special Operations Executive, famously tasked by Winston Churchill himself with ‘setting Europe ablaze’. The coastal towns of south-west Brittany were a hotbed of German submarine activity and our local town of Lorient, a former French naval base, the hottest bed of all. Five times parachuted into the Breton flatlands, my father allied himself with whatever Resistance groups he could find, caused his share of mayhem and died a gruesome death in Rennes prison at the hands of the Gestapo, leaving behind him an example of selfless dedication impossible for any son to match. His other legacy was a misplaced faith in the British public school system, which notwithstanding his dismal performance at his own British public school condemned me to the same fate.

    The earliest years of my life had been passed in paradise. My mother cooked and prattled, my grandfather was severe but kindly, the farm prospered. At home we spoke Breton. At the Catholic primary school in our village, a beautiful young nun who had spent six months in Huddersfield as an au pair taught me the rudiments of the English language and, by national decree, French. In the school holidays I ran barefoot in the fields and cliffs around our farmstead, harvested buckwheat for my mother’s crêpes, tended an old sow called Fadette and played wild games with the children of the village.

    The future meant nothing to me until it struck.

    At Dover, a plump lady called Murphy, cousin to my late father, detached me from my mother’s hand and took me to her house in Ealing. I was eight years old. Through the train window I saw my first barrage balloons. Over supper, Mr Murphy said it would all be over in months and Mrs Murphy said it wouldn’t, both of them speaking slowly and repeating themselves for my benefit. The next day Mrs Murphy took me to Selfridges and bought me a school uniform, taking care to keep the receipts. The day after that, she stood on the platform at Paddington station, and wept while I waved goodbye to her with my new school cap.

    The Anglicization wished on me by my father needs little elaboration. There was a war on. Schools must put up with what they got. I was no longer Pierre but Peter. My poor English was ridiculed by my comrades, my Breton-accented French by my beleaguered teachers. Our little village of Les Deux Eglises, I was informed almost casually, had been overrun by Germans. My mother’s letters arrived, if at all, in brown envelopes with British stamps and London postmarks. It was only years later that I was able to imagine through whose brave hands they must have passed. Holidays were a blur of boys’ camps and proxy parents. Redbrick preparatory schools turned into granite-grey public schools, but the curriculum stayed the same: the same margarine, the same homilies on patriotism and Empire, the same random violence, careless cruelty and unappeased, unaddressed sexual desire. One spring evening in 1944, shortly before the D-Day landings, the headmaster called me to his study and told me that my father had died a soldier’s death, and that I should be proud of him. For security reasons, no further explanation was available.

    I was sixteen when, at the end of a particularly tedious summer term, I returned to peacetime Brittany a half-grown English misfit. My grandfather had died. A new companion named Monsieur Emile was sharing my mother’s bed. I did not care for Monsieur Emile. One half of Fadette had been given to the Germans, the other to the Resistance. In flight from the contradictions of my childhood and fuelled by a sense of filial obligation, I stowed away on a train to Marseilles and, adding a year to my age, attempted to enlist in the French Foreign Legion. My quixotic venture came to a summary end when the Legion, making a rare concession to my mother’s entreaties on the grounds that I was not foreign but French, released me back into captivity, this time to the London suburb of Shoreditch, where my father’s unlikely stepbrother Markus ran a trading company importing precious furs and carpets from the Soviet Union – except he always called it Russia – and had offered to teach me the trade.

    Uncle Markus remains another unsolved mystery in my life. I do not know to this day whether his offer of employment was in some way inspired by my later masters. When I asked him how my father had died, he shook his head in disapproval – not of my father, but of the crassness of my question. Sometimes I wonder whether it is possible to be born secret, in the way people are born rich, or tall, or musical. Markus was not mean, or tight, or unkind. He was just secret. He was middle-European, his name was Collins. I never learned what it was before that. He spoke accented English very fast, but I never learned what his mother tongue was. He called me Pierre. He had a lady friend named Dolly who ran a hat shop in Wapping and collected him from the door of the warehouse on Friday afternoons. But I never knew where they went for their weekends, whether they were married to each other, or to other people. Dolly had a Bernie in her life, but I never knew whether Bernie was her husband, her son or her brother, because Dolly was born secret too.

    And I don’t know even in retrospect whether the Collins Trans-Siberian Fur & Fine Carpet Company was a bona fide trading house, or a cover company set up for the purpose of intelligence gathering. Later, when I tried to find out, I met a blank wall. I knew that every time Uncle Markus was preparing to visit a trade fair, whether in Kiev, Perm or Irkutsk, he trembled a lot; and that when he came back, he drank a lot. And that in the days leading up to a trade fair, a well-spoken Englishman called Jack would swing by, charm the secretaries, pop his head round the door to the sorting room and call ‘hullo, Peter, all well with you?’ – never Pierre – then take Markus out to a good lunch somewhere. And after lunch, Markus would come back to his office and lock the door.

    Jack claimed to be a broker in fine sable, but I know now that what he really dealt in was intelligence, because when Markus announced that his doctor wouldn’t allow him to do fairs any more, Jack suggested I come to lunch with him instead, and took me to the Travellers Club in Pall Mall, and asked me whether I would have preferred life in the Legion, and if I was serious about any of my girlfriends, and why I had fled my public school considering I’d been captain of boxing, and whether I had ever thought of doing something useful for my country, by which he meant England, because if I felt I’d missed out on the war on account of my age, this was my chance to catch up. He mentioned my father once only, over lunch, in terms so casual that I might have supposed the topic could equally well have slipped his memory altogether:

    ‘Oh, and concerning your much revered late papa. Strictly off the record, and I never said this. All right by you?’

    ‘Yes.’

    ‘He was a very brave chap indeed, and did a bloody good job for his country. Both his countries. Enough said?’

    ‘If you say so.’

    ‘So here’s to him.’

    Here’s to him, I agreed, and we drank a silent toast.

    At an elegant country house in Hampshire, Jack and his colleague Sandy, and an efficient girl called Emily, whom I immediately fell in love with, gave me the short course in clearing a dead letter box in mid-town Kiev – actually a chunk of loose masonry in the wall of an old tobacco kiosk – of which they had a replica set up in the orangery. And how to read the safety signal that would tell me it was all right to clear it – in this case a piece of tattered green ribbon tied to a railing. And how afterwards to indicate that I had cleared the letter box, by tossing an empty Russian cigarette packet into a litter bin next to a bus shelter.

    ‘And maybe, Peter, when you apply for your Russian visa, better to use your French passport rather than your Brit version,’ he suggested breezily, and reminded me that Uncle Markus had an affiliate company in Paris. ‘And Emily’s off-limits, by the way,’ he added, in case I was thinking otherwise, which I was.

    *

    And that was my first run, my first ever assignment for what I later came to know as the Circus, and my first vision of myself as a secret warrior in my dead father’s image. I can no longer enumerate the other runs I made over the next couple of years, a good half-dozen at least, to Leningrad, Gdansk and Sofia, then to Leipzig and Dresden, and all of them, so far as I ever knew, uneventful, if you took away the business of gearing yourself up, then gearing yourself down again afterwards.

    Over long weekends in another country house with another beautiful garden, I added other tricks to my repertoire, such as counter-surveillance and brushing up against strangers in a crowd to make a furtive hand-over. Somewhere in the middle of these antics, in a coy ceremony conducted in a safe flat in South Audley Street, I was allowed to take possession of my father’s gallantry medals, one French, one English, and the citations that explained them. Why the delay? I might have asked. But by then I had learned not to.

    It was not until I started visiting East Germany that tubby, bespectacled, permanently worried George Smiley wandered into my life one Sunday afternoon in West Sussex, where I was being debriefed, not by Jack any more but by a rugged fellow called Jim, of Czech extraction and around my age, whose surname, when he was finally allowed to have one, turned out to be Prideaux. I mention him because later he too played a substantial part in my career.

    Smiley didn’t say much at my debriefing, just sat and listened and occasionally peered owlishly at me through his thick-rimmed spectacles. But when it was over he suggested we take a turn in the garden, which seemed endless and had a park attached to it. We talked, we sat on a bench, strolled, sat again, kept talking. My dear mother – was she alive and well? She’s fine, thank you, George. A bit dotty, but fine. Then my father – had I kept his medals? I said my mother polished them every Sunday, which was true. I didn’t mention that she sometimes hung them on me and wept. But, unlike Jack, he never asked me about my girls. He must have thought there was safety in numbers.

    And when I recall that conversation now, I can’t help thinking that, consciously or not, he was offering himself as the father figure he later became. But perhaps the feeling was in me, and not in him. The fact remains that, when he finally popped the question, I had a feeling of coming home, even though my home was across the Channel in Brittany.

    ‘We were wondering, you see,’ he said in a faraway voice, ‘whether you’d ever considered signing up with us on a more regular basis? People who have worked on the outside for us don’t always fit well on the inside. But in your case, we think you might. We don’t pay a lot, and careers tend to be interrupted. But we do feel it’s an important job, as long as one cares about the end, and not too much about the means.’

    2

    My farmstead at Les Deux Eglises consists of one straight-backed nineteenth-century granite manoir of no distinction, one tumbledown barn with a stone cross on its gable, remnants of fortifications from forgotten wars, an ancient stone well, now unused but formerly requisitioned by Resistance fighters to hide their weapons from the Nazi occupier, an equally ancient outdoor baking oven, a cider press, obsolete, and fifty hectares of indifferent pasture descending to cliff land and the sea’s edge. The place has been in the family’s possession for four generations. I am the fifth. It is neither a noble nor a profitable acquisition. To my right, as I look out of my living-room window, I have the knobbly spire of a nineteenth-century church; and to my left, a white stand-alone chapel, thatched. Between them, they have endowed the village with its name. In Les Deux Eglises, as in all of Brittany, we are Catholic or we are nothing. I am nothing.

    To reach our farmstead from the town of Lorient, you first drive for half an hour or so along the southern coast road, which in winter is lined with skinny poplar trees, passing on your way west chunks of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall which, being unremovable, are fast acquiring the status of a latter-day Stonehenge. After thirty kilometres or so, you start to watch out for a pizza restaurant grandly named Odyssée on your left and soon after it on your right a reeking junkyard where the misnomered Honoré, a drunken vagabond whom my mother always cautioned me to avoid, and known locally as the poison dwarf, peddles bric-à-brac, old car tyres and manure. On reaching a battered sign saying Delassus, this being my mother’s family name, you turn up a pitted track, braking hard as you go over the potholes or, if you are Monsieur Denis the postman, weaving deftly between them at full speed: which was what he was doing this sunny morning in early autumn, to the indignation of the chickens in the courtyard and the sublime indifference of Amoureuse, my beloved Irish setter, who was far too occupied grooming her latest litter to give her attention to mere human affairs.

    As for me, from the moment Monsieur Denis – alias le Général, thanks to his great height and supposed resemblance to President de Gaulle – had unwound himself from his yellow van and started towards the front steps, I knew at one glance that the letter he was grasping in his spindly hand was from the Circus.

    *

    I wasn’t alarmed at first, just quietly amused. Some things about a British secret service never change. One of them is an obsessive anxiety about what sort of stationery to use for its overt correspondence. Not too official or formal looking: that would be bad for cover. The envelope not see-through, so preferably lined. Stark white is too visible: go for a tint, just nothing amorous. A dull blue, a hint of grey, both are acceptable. This one was pale grey.

    Next question: do we type the address, do we handwrite it? For answer, consider as always the needs of the man in the field, in this case, me: Peter Guillam, ex-member, out to grass and grateful for it. Long-time resident in rural France. Attends no veterans’ reunions. No listed significant others. Draws full pension and therefore torturable. Conclusion: in a remote Breton hamlet where foreigners are a rarity, a typed, semi-formal-looking grey envelope with a British stamp could raise local eyebrows, so go for handwritten. Now for the hard bit. The Office, or whatever the Circus calls itself these days, can’t resist a security classification, even if it’s only Private. Maybe add a Personal for extra force? Private & Personal, addressee only? Too heavy. Stick to Private. Or better, as in this case, Personnel.

    1 Artillery Buildings

    London, SE14

    My dear Guillam,

    We haven’t met, but allow me to introduce myself. I am business affairs manager at your old firm, with responsibility for both current and historical cases. A matter in which you appear to have played a significant role some years back has unexpectedly raised its head, and I have no option but to ask you to make yourself available in London as soon as possible to assist us in preparing a response.

    I am authorized to offer you reimbursement for your travel arrangements (economy class) and a London-weighted per diem of £130 for as long as your presence is required.

    Since we appear to have no telephone number for you, kindly feel free to call Tania at the number above and reverse the charges, or if you have email, at the email address below. Without wishing to inconvenience you, I have to stress that the matter is of some urgency. Allow me in closing to draw your attention to Paragraph 14 of your termination agreement.

    Yours sincerely,

    A. Butterfield

    (LA to CS)

    P.S. Kindly remember to bring your passport with you when you present yourself at Reception. AB

    For ‘LA to CS’ read Legal Adviser to Chief of Service. For ‘Paragraph 14’ read lifelong duty to attend, should Circus needs dictate. And for ‘allow me to remind you’ read just remember who pays your pension. And I don’t have email. And why doesn’t he date his letter: security?

    Catherine is down in the orchard with her nine-year-old daughter Isabelle, playing with a pair of vicious young goats we recently had wished on us. She is a slight woman with a broad Breton face and slow brown eyes that measure you without expression. If she stretches out her arms, the goats leap into them and little Isabelle, who pleases herself in her own ways, puts her hands together and spins round on her heel in private delight. But Catherine, muscular though she is, must be careful to catch her goats one at a time, because if they’re allowed to jump at her together they can knock her flat. Isabelle ignores me. Eye contact bothers her.

    In the field behind them, deaf Yves the occasional labourer is bent double cutting cabbages. With his right hand he slices the stems, with his left he tosses them into a cart, but the angle of his arched back never changes. He is watched by an old grey horse called Artemis, another of Catherine’s foundlings. A couple of years back we took in a stray ostrich who had broken loose from a neighbouring farm. When Catherine alerted the farmer, he said keep him, he’s too old. The ostrich expired gracefully and we gave him a state funeral.

    ‘You wish something, Pierre?’ Catherine demands.

    ‘Got to go away for a few days, I’m afraid,’ I reply.

    ‘To Paris?’ Catherine does not approve of me going to Paris.

    ‘To London,’ I reply. And because even in retirement I need a cover story: ‘Someone’s died.’

    ‘Someone you love?’

    ‘Not any more,’ I reply, with a firmness that takes me by surprise.

    ‘Then it is not important. You leave tonight?’

    ‘Tomorrow. I’ll take the early flight from Rennes.’

    Time was, the Circus had only to whistle and I would race to Rennes for a plane. Not today.

    *

    You have to have grown to spy’s estate in the old Circus to understand the aversion that came over me as, at four o’clock the following afternoon, I paid off my cab and started up the concrete catwalk to the Service’s shockingly ostentatious new headquarters. You

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