A Legacy of Spies

For the first time in over 30 years, John le Carré returns to the Cold War in this bestselling masterpiece. Peter Guillam, colleague and disciple of George Smiley of the British Secret Service, otherwise known as the Circus, has retired to his family farmstead on the south coast of Brittany when a letter from his old Service summons him to London. His Cold War past has come back to claim him.

''A brilliant novel of deception, love and trust to join his supreme cannon'' Evening Standard''Vintage le Carre. Immensely clever, breathtaking. Really, not since The Spy Who Came in from the Cold has le Carre exercised his gift as a storyteller so powerfully and to such thrilling effect'' John Banville, GuardianPeter Guillam, former disciple of George Smiley in the British Secret Service, has long retired to Brittany when a letter arrives, summoning him to London. The reason? Cold War ghosts have come back to haunt him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of the Service are to be dissected by a generation with no memory of the Berlin Wall. Somebody must pay for innocent blood spilt in the name of the greater good . . .''Utterly engrossing and perfectly pitched. There is only one le Carre. Eloquent, subtle, sublimely paced'' Daily Mail''Splendid, fast-paced, riveting'' Andrew Marr, Sunday Times''Remarkable. It gives the reader, at long last, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that have been missing for 54 years. Like wine, le Carre''s writing has got richer with age'' The Times''Perhaps the most significant novelist of the second half of the 20th century in Britain. He''s in the first rank'' Ian McEwan''One of those writers who will be read a century from now'' Robert Harris>

Auteur

John le Carré was born in 1931. For six decades, he wrote novels that came to define our age. The son of a confidence trickster, he spent his childhood between boarding school and the London underworld. At sixteen he found refuge at the University of Bern, then later at Oxford. A spell of teaching at Eton led him to a short career in British Intelligence (MI5 & 6). He published his debut novel, Call for the Dead, in 1961 while still a secret servant. His third novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, secured him a worldwide reputation, which was consolidated by the acclaim for his trilogy, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Honourable Schoolboy and Smiley's People. At the end of the Cold War, le Carré widened his scope to explore an international landscape including the arms trade and the War on Terror. His memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, was published in 2016 and the last George Smiley novel, A Legacy of Spies, appeared in 2017. He died on 12 December 2020. His posthumous novel, Silverview, was published in 2021.

Texte du rabat

**John le Carr /b>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 more than fifty years he has lived by his pen. He divides his time between London and Cornwall.

Résumé

*Chosen as a Book of the Year in *The Times Literary Supplement, the Evening Standard, the Daily Telegraph, the Guardian, *The Times
*
'A brilliant novel of deception, love and trust to join his supreme cannon' *Evening Standard
*
'Vintage le Carré. Immensely clever, breathtaking. Really, not since The Spy Who Came in from the Cold has le Carré exercised his gift as a storyteller so powerfully and to such thrilling effect' John Banville, Guardian

Peter Guillam, former disciple of George Smiley in the British Secret Service, has long retired to Brittany when a letter arrives, summoning him to London. The reason? Cold War ghosts have come back to haunt him. Intelligence operations that were once the toast of the Service are to be dissected by a generation with no memory of the Berlin Wall. Somebody must pay for innocent blood spilt in the name of the greater good . . .

'Utterly engrossing and perfectly pitched. There is only one le Carré. Eloquent, subtle, sublimely paced' Daily Mail

'Splendid, fast-paced, riveting' Andrew Marr, Sunday Times

'Remarkable. It gives the reader, at long last, pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that have been missing for 54 years. Like wine, le Carré's writing has got richer with age' The Times

'Perhaps the most significant novelist of the second half of the 20th century in Britain. He's in the first rank' Ian McEwan

'One of those writers who will be read a century from now' Robert Harris